


Aphelion

by MaCall



Series: Parhelion [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Autism, Canon-Typical Violence, Cousin Incest, F/M, Gen, Multi, Mutual Pining, Novella, POV Original Female Character, POV Third Person Plural, Pre-Relationship, Present Tense, Slow Burn, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-05-07 08:05:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19205284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaCall/pseuds/MaCall
Summary: “She wasn’t so young that she didn’t know her country was at war. Not so young that she hadn’t been tasked to defend it. Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”—R. F. Kuang,The Poppy WarThree minutes under torture feels endless, almost. When the pain abruptly stops, Hotaru is drooling on the polished oak floor. Tears are stinging the corners of her eyes and clumping her eyelashes.It feels like her body isn’t hers anymore. Hotaru swallows hard and stares at her fingertips, slowly furling and unfurling them until the cognitive dissonance fades away.This is how Neji-niisan always feels, she thinks,like he doesn’t belong to himself.This is what being cursed feels like.In which Hinata has a twin sister.





	1. Sycamore

**Author's Note:**

> (1) I can’t believe I’m writing _Naruto_ fic in 2019. It’s wild because I started to read the manga in 2002—when I was eleven—and I’m the same age Kakashi was in Part I now. What the actual fuck. I wanted to write something that would explore what disability might be like in the _Naruto_ world, especially for someone from a noble family like the Hyuuga. Which is why I created Hotaru. I know original characters aren’t the most popular thing, but I hope you like her.
> 
> I’m also gonna warn you that Neji/Hotaru is endgame in this series. If that squicks you or triggers you in some way, click back and save yourself from me and my bullshit while you still can.
> 
> (2) If you hover over the Japanese words and phrases, you should be able to see a translation of them. Unless you’re on mobile or using an incompatible browser, in which case you can ask me what things mean.
> 
> (3) Parhelion means “beside the sun.” Hyuuga is written as 「日向」, meaning “a place in the sun.” Aphelion means “the farthest point from the sun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) It’s never explained how long the Academy curriculum is supposed to take to complete. Kakashi graduated at five and became a chuunin at six, Itachi graduated a year after he enrolled and became a genin when he was only seven, the Konoha 11 graduated when they were twelve. I’m writing the Academy as the ninja equivalent of preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school. It’s technically a seven or eight-year curriculum taught to students between the ages of four or five and twelve, but some people are more advanced than others. There are different classes divided by where the students are in the curriculum and specialized classes for kunoichi.
> 
> (2) Since the elders and Hiashi keep Hinata and Hanabi unsealed, other siblings of the heir must’ve been allowed to live without the curse seal at some point. This makes me think it’s meant to eliminate any candidates who might oppose the heir and screw with the line of succession like Neji does—pun intended.

**Maybe a girl**  
**is born too much everything, and everything**  
**she touches takes something from her.**  
**Maybe to be a woman is to be a certain kind of hollow.**  
**After all, for years I’ve seen the hollow in**  
**everything. I pick up the house I grew up in**  
**and throw it over my shoulder like it’s nothing.**  
**I learned early what this world wants from me.**  
**I carve myself out and be that instead.**

Clementine Von Radics, “Explaining Girlhood to a Boy Who Has Never Been There”

* * *

_Parhelion_  
**Part I** :  
Aphelion  
**Chapter 1** :  
Sycamore

* * *

_Sycamore trees (Platanus orientalis) can also be called Oriental plane-trees. Their flowers have two meanings: genius and curiosity_.

* * *

**53 NSE**

* * *

When she activates her Byakugan on her third birthday, her father calls her a genius—a prodigy. Hyuuga Hotaru beams at Hiashi and toddles away to imitate his Gentle Fist: Palm Strike, her hand flashing with pale blue and gold chakra that fizzles out in a fraction of a second. Hinata watches her twin sister and smiles in echo, her eyes shining bright. Iroha and Kou, their main house caretakers, watch the girls in their periphery while Hotaru tries to climb Tokuma, her branch house protector, like a tree.

Hotaru and Hinata are fraternal twins, born three hours apart. Hinata looks delicate like their mother Ageha, with pale skin, dark violet hair in shades of midnight cut short, and moonlit eyes. Hotaru has unruly black hair unfurling over her shoulders and down her back, the same pale skin, button nose, and pure white eyes as her sister. If not for the hair, they would look almost identical; but their personalities are more distinct. Hinata is quiet and kind, selfless to a fault. Hotaru is loud, unadulterated, and a bit spoiled. Hinata tugs on the sleeve of her kimono and that makes her grin, wide and with a hint of teeth.

Neji, their four-year-old cousin, watches Hinata on their way to the banquet hall and a flush of pink suffuses his cheeks; his pale forehead is smooth and unmarked. Hyuuga Hizashi clenches his jaw and stands with his hands behind his back, his fingers obvoluted like the leaves in the forest to stop himself from digging his nails into his palms. It’s the last day that his only son will be free of the curse mark jutsu used by the main house to control the branch house—the caged bird curse seal. Hiashi puts a hand on his shoulder, his palm heavy and oppressive as the tension takes root and flourishes in the space between them.

“It’s time,” he says without inflection. _It’s time I took him under my wing_.

Hiashi doesn’t seal three-year-old Hinata that night because he doesn’t think she would survive the application of the curse mark, but Neji is strong—and that strength is his curse. Hizashi tries not to resent his older brother for branding his son and fails miserably. Hiashi looks down at his sleeping daughters after the ceremony and knows they won’t ever be equals, with or without the seal.

When the head ninja of Kumogakure flickers into their room, Hiashi attacks with his Palm Strike and pours his chakra into the blow. Hizashi dies a week later to protect his twin brother from the repercussions of breaking the peace treaty between the hidden villages of Fire Country and Lightning Country. Neji clings to his cruel fate as a member of the branch house because it’s the only thing he has left of his father, and because he doesn’t understand what it means to have someone that he would choose to live and die for.

 _Someday_ , his mother Midori thinks, _he will_.

* * *

**54 NSE**

* * *

Neji jerks at the sensation of a fingertip on his forehead and smacks a small hand away from his face before he opens his eyes.

“Does it still hurt, niisan?” Hotaru asks.

Neji glares at her in the darkness, focusing on the slivers of moonlight illuminating her face. _Don’t call me that_ , he thinks, _I’m not your brother. I’m not even worthy of being your protector_. “Yes,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “Don’t touch me, Hotaru _-sama_.”

Hotaru swallows hard and twists her fingers together in front of her navel, a nervous habit. “I’ll never use it,” she whispers and holds her pinky up tentatively, “I _won’t_. I promise.”

Neji growls in the back of his throat and narrows his eyes at the shadows clinging to her finger. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he whispers back.

* * *

**55 NSE**

* * *

Hiashi enrolls Hotaru in the Academy the spring after her fourth birthday and continues her Gentle Fist training after school while Hinata struggles to master the same taijutsu kata. Hotaru doesn’t have enough control to channel her chakra into her strikes and block the tenketsu of her opponents yet, but soon the movements of the Gentle Fist become second nature to her. Hinata strikes the negative space in front of her, kicks and spins with precision, but flinches when their father tells her to face her twin sister and fight. Honoka, Hatori, Hiroki, and Haboshi—the main house elders—focus on Hotaru, the heir. Hinata works hard to make them look _at_ her instead of _through_ her; she’s the quiet one, but she’s not invisible. Ageha cringes every time she fails and flinches every time her youngest daughter succeeds. If the elders see that Hinata isn’t a weakling, they might push Hiashi into sealing her so her skills won’t threaten the line of succession.

Neji watches his cousins in the dojo and memorizes their stances, their strikes. Hizashi was forbidden to use the art of the main branch: the Eight Trigrams palm techniques Hiashi mastered before he became the head of the clan. Neji watches his cousins, and learns what his father never knew.

* * *

**56 NSE**

* * *

Ageha dies of complications from her second pregnancy the spring after their fifth birthday. Hiashi enrolls Hinata at the academy a week later because he sees the ghost of his wife in the face of his second daughter and he doesn’t want her to spend her days at the compound anymore. After her body is cremated and Hotaru helps Hinata pick her bones out of the ashes that won’t be interred until the ceremony on the forty-ninth day after her death and put all of them in the burial urn from the feet up, Hiashi uses his best calligraphy brush to write his name in red next to her name on her gravestone—the red ink won’t be removed from the monument until he dies.

Neji attends the funeral with the rest of the branch house and takes his place behind the second daughter of the main house with Tokuma to his left and Ruri to his right. Ruri has been chosen as the branch house protector for Hanabi, his baby cousin. Neji clenches his fists as Hinata cries and bites his tongue because he wants to scream at her that she deserves this, that she and the other princesses of the main house deserved to lose their mother like he lost his father.

After the funeral ceremony ends, the first daughter of the main house struggles to untie her obi and rips her formal black mofuku off as her shoulders tremble with the force of her unshed tears. Hotaru sinks her teeth into the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood that drips onto her tongue. When she looks at herself in the mirror, her eyes are puffy and snot is dripping out of her left nostril. Hotaru sniffles and laughs as she peels her hiyoku, nagajuban and hadajuban over her shoulders and kicks her zori off. After she tugs her feet out of her tabi socks, she goes to stand barefoot in front of the mirror hanging on the wall in one corner of the room in only her white susoyoke and forms the seal of confrontation to activate her Byakugan.

Hotaru watches the veins around her eyes pulse with chakra as she catalogs everything in her field of vision and checks her blind spot out of habit before she looks at herself in the mirror. There are still a pair of black jade kougai hairpins and black kushi combs on her head, her shimada mage hairstyle too elaborate for a five-year-old. Hotaru performs another seal and suppresses her chakra by half, watching the flow of the energy in the pathways inside her body while she grits her teeth and struggles to make the jutsu work.

It takes six tries, but focusing on her control—or lack thereof—is better than bawling her eyes out because her mother is dead.

Hotaru puts the hair accessories away and washes the wax out of her hair before she changes into her training gear and goes to the dojo, mourning in another shade of black. Hinata is sitting in the gardens where she helped their mother cultivate the plants and herbs they use to make healing ointments and deadly undetectable poisons, her silk mofuku splattered with mud and her pale feet bare. Hiashi is spending the night at the hospital to watch over their new baby sister, who needs checkups and shots before she comes home to her room in the main house.

 _Death is the only inevitable thing in this world_ , her grandmother Honoka had told her when she asked what being dead meant, _the only destiny we all share._ _Someday you will see your Okaasama again in heaven_.

Hotaru tilts her head backward and stares through the ceiling at the waning moon in the gloaming sky while she warms up, stretching her muscles and waiting for Iroha to find her. Tenketsushin—the chakra point needle—is a Gentle Fist technique she can’t practice by herself.

 _Watch me, Okaasama_ , she thinks and moves smoothly into her fighting stance. _I will be strong_.

* * *

**57 NSE**

* * *

Hiashi decides his daughters are too old to share a room after their sixth birthday. Hotaru is excited about getting her own bed, but it feels too big and empty without Hinata curling up next to her while she falls asleep. Hiashi tells Hinata to start calling her Oneesama, and Hotaru can feel the distance between them get bigger every time she does.

 _We’re twins_ , she thinks, _but we’re not equals. Why is that? Why does our clan put me and my twin sister on different paths? Why am I the heir? Just because I was born a few hours before her? Or because I’m a prodigy? Neji-niisan is a genius, but he’s still branch house. If Hina or Hanabi end up like Hizashi-ojisan, I_ …

“Hotaru,” Hiashi says and puts a cup of shincha in front of her.

… _I won’t forgive you_ , she thinks and smiles at her father. “Otousama,” she says and sips her green tea without grimacing even though she hates it. _Rule #3_ , she thinks, _a shinobi must never show any weakness_.

“I spoke to Suzume-sensei and Iruka-sensei about your progress at the Academy,” Hiashi tells her as she eats the imagawayaki he put in front of her, “you should be able to graduate next spring. However, I do not recommend you graduate until you learn to control your emotions. Suzume-sensei tells me you’re loud and unladylike. Hyuuga doesn’t need an heir like that.”

Hotaru takes another sip of tea. “I’m old enough to know this much,” she murmurs, “people can hide their feelings but that doesn’t make those feelings go away. I won’t lose myself in order to become a shinobi,” she meets his eyes without flinching before she says, “I won’t choose between having feelings and being a ninja. I’ll show you that I don’t have to. Watch me.”

* * *

**58 NSE**

* * *

Hotaru graduates from the Academy the spring after her seventh birthday and becomes a genin. Mitarashi Anko, a nineteen-year-old tokubetsu jounin who specializes in tracking, is assigned as the sensei for Team 4. Hiashi only approved of Anko as her sensei because Iroha was also a member of Team Orochimaru before their sensei betrayed Konoha and fled the village. Iroha vouched for her and invited her to a chaji at the Hyuuga compound, where she demonstrated her talents for eating dango and making tea. Hotaru is the youngest member of her team—Uchiha Izumi is eleven and Yamanaka Ageha is twelve. Ageha is a boy and his name isn’t written using the same kanji as her mother’s name, but Hotaru still has to teach herself not to flinch every time Anko-sensei talks to him. Yamanaka Shiho, his younger sister, is a student in the same class as Neji at the Academy.

When she’s not doing C or D-rank missions with her team or training with her father to master the Gentle Fist, Hotaru reads the scrolls in the Hyuuga clan archives to learn everything about her family. Their clan predates the founding of the village hidden in the leaves by hundreds of years. It was called Leaf Country before the Shinobi Era began, a small country inhabited by the four noble houses of Konoha: the Hyuuga clan, the Uchiha clan, the Aburame clan, and the Akimichi clan. When the warring states that had been feuding united to become Fire Country, the Uchiha clan allied with the Senju clan and changed the name of the small country to Konohagakure. Their clan predates the Warring States Era, too—the records in the archives go back a hundred generations, but some of them are written in archaic script that she can’t read. Others are written in codes she doesn’t know, and some of them are so old they don’t have cipher keys anymore. Maybe her father has a book of them in his study and she’ll inherit the keys if she lives to lead the clan.

There are seven ninja clans in Konoha who immigrated to the village from all over the country before the Shodaime was elected: the Senju clan, the Shimura clan, the Sarutobi clan, the Hatake clan, the Yamanaka clan, the Inuzuka clan, and the Nara clan. Hatake and Shimura were mercenary clans, and those families were almost wiped out during the Warring States Era. Shimura Danzou, a member of the council that advises the Sandaime, is the only surviving member of his clan. Copy Ninja Kakashi, a former student of the Yondaime and the son of the White Fang of Konoha, is the only Hatake left; his mother was an Inuzuka named Arashi, but he’s not part of her clan. After the hidden village in Whirlpool Country was destroyed, the surviving members of the Uzumaki clan—distant relatives of the Senju clan—immigrated to Konoha from Uzushiogakure. Uzumaki Naruto, the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, is the only surviving member of his clan. Tsunade, one of the legendary Sannin and granddaughter of the Shodaime, is the sole surviving Senju.

Hotaru squints at the family tree in one scroll and runs her finger up the line of the main family. It’s written in black ink, while the branch families are written in green ink—the same ink they use for the caged bird curse seal. _Hitomi-obasan wasn’t sealed like Hizashi-ojisan even though Otousama is her brother_ , she thinks, _Hajime-ojisan was branch house before he married her and his forehead is still marked with the curse seal. Neji-niisan is branch house, too. Iroha-niisan, Kou-niisan, and Natsu-neesan are main house, but they’re our caretakers. We’re cousins, but we’re not equals_.

Hyuuga Hitomi is the younger sister of Hiashi and Hizashi, but she was never sealed because she can’t activate her Byakugan. It’s not uncommon in the clan—Hatori and Haboshi can’t activate their Byakugan either and they’re elders. Neji is branch house, but he has a pure Hyuuga bloodline despite that because every one of his ancestors was able to activate the kekkei genkai of their clan. There are marks on the family tree to illustrate this, detailing who activated their Byakugan and at what age. Ageha was four. Hiashi and Hizashi were six. Hotaru was three. Hinata was five. Neji was only two.

Neji is training alone in the forest eighty meters away, as the crow flies. Hotaru can see him in her periphery with her Byakugan. Sometimes he stops moving and stands perfectly still to look up, transfixed by the birds soaring in the endless sky.

“Oneesama?” Hinata mumbles.

Hotaru deactivates her Byakugan as she glances up from the scrolls and smiles at her sister. “I’m only three hours older than you,” she points out, “you don’t need to call me that, Hina.”

“A-Ano,” Hinata stutters and smiles back, “y-you are still my older sister, Oneesama.”

Hotaru rolls her eyes as she rises to her feet and puts the scrolls away. It’s not because she’s the older twin. Hinata calls her Oneesama because she’s the heir and their father never lets either of them forget that. _We’re sisters_ , she thinks, _but we’re not equals_.

“It’s time f-for bridal training,” Hinata tells her.

Hotaru sighs inwardly. “Un,” she mutters.

Their aunt is waiting for them in the main house kitchen, where they help cook dinner and make bento lunch boxes for every member of the clan—main house and branch house. Most noble ladies are expected to learn how to cook, even though noble houses typically employ a kitchen staff. Their bridal training also consists of lessons on tea ceremony, ikebana, calligraphy, etiquette, bugaku and gagaku. Hotaru can dance, but she’s tone-deaf and she has no talent for gagaku. Hinata can sing and play the yamatogoto, and for her bugaku is easier to master than Gentle Fist techniques because the dance movements are slow and precise. Hotaru knows she’s going to marry someone from the clan in order to keep her bloodline pure, but Hinata and Hanabi might be sealed and married off to someone from another clan of shinobi in order to eliminate any children they have from the line of succession.

If a Hyuuga from the main house can’t activate the Byakugan, sometimes they’re sealed and married off into one of the noble houses of Fire Country. Taketori Hatsune, the head of the Taketori clan, was a Hyuuga before she married her late husband Okino. Hatsumi, her oldest daughter, is the wife of the Daimyo and mother of his heir.

According to the family tree, no one with the ability to activate the Byakugan has married someone outside the clan in ten generations.

* * *

**59 NSE**

* * *

Yamanaka Ageha is killed in a border skirmish at the outskirts of Amegakure on their way back to Konoha from a B-rank escort mission to Earth Country and Izumi is murdered by Uchiha Itachi in the brutal massacre dubbed the Uchiha Clan Downfall by the _Konoha Chronicle_. Six months later, the only surviving member of Team Anko is given special permission by the Sandaime to take the chuunin exams by herself.

Hotaru keeps most of her chakra suppressed during the preliminaries and a genin from Iwagakure breaks one of her arms before she defeats him with one hand using her Palm Strike. After she lets Tokuma heal it, she trains and learns the Eight Trigrams: Sky Palm, a technique she can use with one hand. Hinata watches the finals with their father and Hanabi from the part of the arena reserved for noble houses and gasps when her twin undoes the chakra suppression jutsu.

“You’re in range,” Hotaru tells her opponent softly as she activates her Byakugan and smoothly moves into an Eight Trigrams stance. “I only need thirty-two strikes to defeat you. Eight Trigrams: Thirty-Two Palms!”

Neji watches his cousin with his Byakugan activated to memorize her movements, analyzing every spin of her feet and every strike of her small white hands. It hurts to look at her with the bright currents of her chakra illuminating the pathways inside her body. Neji couldn’t look away from her even if he wanted to—his blind spot isn’t big enough to blot out so much power.

Hotaru glows like her incandescent namesake, like a firefly; like a light in the darkness.

* * *

Hotaru is wearing her chuunin flak jacket when she walks into a restaurant and sits across from Hatake Kakashi, who blinks at her lazily with one black eye over his plate of sanma shioyaki. Typically, girls who track him down after dark aren’t tiny eight-year-olds with hair like a puffy black cloud and pure white eyes that look haunted.

“Hyuuga-ojousama,” he says, his lips forming the words behind his mask, “isn’t it long past your bedtime?”

Hotaru doesn’t take the bait. Anko has some adult thing going on with Kakashi that she’s not old enough to understand, but any ninja worth their salt can see he’s been pushing everyone around him away longer than she’s been alive. Hotaru doesn’t take it personally—it must be second nature to him at this point. “I want to learn the Hiraishin technique,” she informs him without bothering to make small talk. “Yondaime-sama learned it from a scroll he got from Jiraiya-sama of the legendary Sannin, whose sensei was Sandaime-sama, whose sensei was Nidaime-sama who invented the jutsu. You were a student of Yondaime-sama. You’re the only person in Konoha who knows this jutsu besides the squad assigned to the Hokage guard platoon—Shiranui Genma-san, Namiashi Raidou-san, and Tatami Iwashi-san—but they could only master a formation variant of the jutsu. You’ve copied over a thousand jutsu with the Sharingan. You’re the only one who can teach it to me. Please.”

Kakashi stares at her with one shrewd eye. “You’ve done your research,” he says, the cadence of his voice going sharp at the edges.

Hotaru tilts her head slantwise like a bird of prey and shrugs. “Un,” she says.

“It’s an S-rank jutsu,” Kakashi says. “You’re just a kid.”

Hotaru narrows her eyes at him. Kakashi was only six years old when he made chuunin—a year and a half younger than she is now. “I’m old enough that I’ve seen my teammate die,” she tells him softly, “I watched it happen with my Byakugan from six hundred meters away. I wasn’t fast enough to save him, but I could’ve been if I’d known this jutsu. _Please_.”

Kakashi eats his saury in total silence while Hotaru stews in the noxious bile of her anxiety. Since he’s facing a Hyuuga, he doesn’t bother to hide his face because he knows she could look at him through his mask if she wanted to. “I won’t go easy on you,” he warns her after fifteen excruciating minutes of uncomfortable silence.

Hotaru resists the urge to roll her eyes at him. “I don’t want special treatment,” she retorts, “I want to learn.”

“Okay.” Kakashi smiles and she can see his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Then I’ll teach you. We’ll start with this,” he holds up his hand and shows her a small rectangular scrap of paper. “It’s a special type of paper. If you channel your chakra into it, it’ll determine which of the five elemental chakra natures you have an affinity for. I think most Hyuuga have an innate affinity for water. If the paper gets wet, then you’re a water user.”

Hotaru eyeballs the paper and wonders if there’s a catch, if there’s a wrong kind of elemental chakra for learning the Hiraishin technique. “Okay,” she murmurs before she uses two fingers to take the scrap of paper and hold it up as she channels a jolt of her chakra into it.

Kakashi stares as the paper wrinkles in between her fingers. “If the paper crumples like that,” he says, “you’re a lightning user. We’re the same nature type.”

Hotaru folds the crumpled piece of paper into an origami frog and pokes it so it hops across the table to land by his plate. “So that means…?”

“It means we start tomorrow.”

* * *

Neji watches Hotaru when she trains with Hiashi at the compound because he can see her moves and mimic them in secret, thereby mastering techniques he’s technically forbidden to learn. Hinata is his sparring partner, but she’s not at his level and he takes her failure to excel at basic techniques as a personal insult because he can’t improve his techniques without using his Byakugan to spy on her twin sister. So when the heir starts training outside the compound at night, he wonders if she changed her regimen because someone from the main house caught him looking. “Ani-ue,” he says after he catches her protector alone. “Where has Hotaru-sama been going at night?”

Tokuma is also his cousin—the oldest son of his mother’s older brother—and they look very similar. Neji and Tokuma are both pale with long hair, sharp eyebrows, high cheekbones, delicate Hyuuga features, strong chins and stubborn jaws. Tokuma has more prominently upturned eyes and shorter hair in a lighter shade of brown, but they look more alike than Hotaru and Hinata do. “Hotaru-sama is attempting to learn the Hiraishin technique,” he says. “Kakashi-senpai has been teaching her for six months. Hiashi-sama approved of it on top of her other training.”

Neji stares at his older cousin with his mouth ajar in shock before he blanks so hard it must be forced. _Hiraishin_ , he thinks, _that’s an S-rank teleportation ninjutsu. I know her mastery of the Gentle Fist is prodigious for her age, but only a spoiled brat of the main family would be arrogant enough to attempt this_. “Where?” he wants to know.

“Why?” Tokuma asks. “You want to watch?”

Neji folds his arms tight across his chest and nods curtly. _I want to see Hotaru-sama fail at something_ , he thinks. _After her mother died, she didn’t shed a tear. I want to see her cry like Hinata-sama does_. “Yes,” he says, “as a matter of fact, I do.”

There are fifty training grounds in Konoha, each consisting of unique environments for different kinds of training. Some of them are more restricted than others, like the Forest of Death and the one that was converted into a wildlife sanctuary. Kakashi uses the third training ground, a field of forests and flatland with a river that flows through it. Neji activates his Byakugan as the fluttering shriek of Chidori slices the night air, the field illuminated with flashes of lightning that boom like a thunderous heartbeat.

Hotaru is standing upside-down on the underside of a tree branch, her left shoulder burned and oozing blood; her fluffy hair is frizzing out like the dark nimbus of a cloud, her bare shins and pale cheeks are stained with smudges of dirt and blades of grass, and tufts of her blunt black bangs are sticking out above the hitai-ate on her forehead. Neji suppresses his chakra to stop her from sensing him while he and Tokuma get within earshot of her and the copy ninja. Hotaru is wheezing, her inhales and exhales loud and tattered; she must’ve dodged the dozens of kunai and shuriken embedded in the grass and trees around her, since the only injury his cousin sustained was a flash burn. It’s obvious that Kakashi wasn’t actually trying to hurt her, because the burn is visible even without the Byakugan. Chidori—like all powerful lightning-style ninjutsu—is capable of inducing high voltage electrical burns and bypassing the skin to damage internal organs instead of causing superficial burns and blisters.

“It’s been three months and you’ve almost mastered the technique,” Kakashi says as she walks down the cracked trunk of the tree and takes a gulp of water from a bottle she left among the tangles of its roots, “you really are a prodigy.”

Hotaru swallows and shakes her head slowly. “It’s not enough,” she rasps.

Kakashi cocks an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?” he asks.

Hotaru inhales deeply through her nose and exhales a loud whoosh of air. “Being a prodigy isn’t enough,” she informs him. “It didn’t help me save Izumi or Ageha-kun. There are forty people in the Hyuuga clan. Someday the lives of those people will be in my hands. If I can’t protect my teammates, I have no right to lead the clan. Otousama…” she bends over and puts the water bottle down before she licks her lips, “…he couldn’t even protect his twin brother. I won’t let what happened to Hizashi-ojisan happen to Hina, or Hanabi, or Neji-niisan, or Tokuma-niisan, or Iroha-niisan, or any other member of the clan. I’m going to protect them all with my own hands, even from each other. Hit me again.”

“Maybe we should take a break,” Kakashi suggests. Charging at her with his Chidori shakes the memories of another young girl loose in his mind—the girl who loved him, the girl he promised to protect, the girl he couldn’t save. “We’ve been at this for hours.”

Hotaru grits her teeth and shakes her head again. There was no correlation between her affinity for lightning nature transformation and learning the Hiraishin, but Kakashi taught her Chidori first to help her build up the stamina and speed needed to successfully perform the teleportation technique. Although she dodged all of the kunai and shuriken he threw at her, she couldn’t avoid his Chidori the second time he used the jutsu to attack her—his elemental chakra resonance has been interfering with her ability to synchronize and transport herself to the chakra she infused in the seals on the hilts of the special kunai he gave her. If she can’t avoid ninjutsu aimed at her by using short range Hiraishin, then she can’t master the technique. Which is unacceptable. “I told you,” she says with slow vehemence, “no special treatment. Hit me again. I can take it.”

“If you’re sure,” Kakashi says.

Hotaru nods succinctly. “Un,” she retorts.

Kakashi forms a sequence of eleven hand seals at lightning speed and charges her with his Lightning Cutter fulminating in his hand. Hotaru flickers and vanishes, only to appear in a faraway tree. Kakashi stops and smiles at the empty space where she vanished from behind his mask.

Hotaru grins wide and warm, her whole face gleaming in spite of the shadows obscuring the world around her. “I did it!” she crows.

Neji feels as though he was struck by the flash of lightning that she teleported to avoid. It reminds him of Hinata walking by the field of sunflowers on their way back to the compound from the Academy, the pristine cruelty and perfection of the main house withering away until only a smiling girl remains. These glimpses of his cousins in the world outside their clan aren’t enough to make him forget that his father died so they could keep smiling, but something in him cracks and claws at his throat every time he remembers that he loves them and wants to protect them—even though he hates them and their father so much he chokes on his own air whenever he thinks about the fateful night that his father was sent to his death.

 _Hotaru-sama looks so happy_ , he thinks, _she’s covered in sweat and stains but I think she might be one of the prettiest things I have ever seen_.


	2. Thistle

**All I have to do is stand here**  
**in my vulnerability and desire.**  
**All I have to do is stand here with my whole heart.**  
**I must not hold my breath, but rather, breathe.**  
**Feet planted firmly on the ground.**  
**Head gathering sun.**  
**I am made of seeds.**

Mindy Nettifee, “Election Eve”

* * *

_Parhelion_  
**Part I** :  
Aphelion  
**Chapter 2** :  
Thistle

* * *

_Thistles mean independence or nobility of character in Japanese flower language. These flowers can also symbolize retaliation, austerity, or misanthropy. Thistles in Western flower language mean “do not touch.”_

* * *

**60 NSE**

* * *

Ten months after she becomes a chuunin, Hotaru is deployed to Kusagakure on a solo B-rank mission to assassinate a ninja warlord named Zosui. Bamboo Country has been at war with Mountain Country for years, and someone with money to burn hired shinobi from Konoha to assassinate the military leaders on both sides. Hotaru suspects the client is a noble from either Fire or Earth Country, since those great nations share borders with Bamboo Country and Mountain Country and the war is making trade routes between them difficult to travel; the profits of warmongering in the small nations to keep them from gaining too much power are being obscured by the inconvenience of waging a war in the space between two of the five great nations. Hiashi didn’t want her to accept the mission, but he understood why she did. Hotaru isn’t a coldblooded killer yet and she needs to learn how to kill without vengeance fueling her if she wants to keep being a shinobi.

Zosui also has ties to Orochimaru, specifically the underground slave market where he gets live test subjects for his mad science experiments. Anko, Hotaru, and Tokuma spent almost three months doing A-rank reconnaissance on the criminal network that Zosui belongs to before the assassination was approved by the office of the Hokage. Which increased the range of her teleportation jutsu exponentially, but she’s not able to Hiraishin from Konohagakure to Kusagakure. It’s approximately five hundred and sixty-three kilometers from the village hidden in the leaves to the village hidden in the grass: approximately sixty-three clicks out of her range. Hotaru only has a range of five kilometers—the same range as her Byakugan—but strategically placed Hiraishin seals concealed in the space between the northwest border of Fire Country and Konoha boost that range a hundredfold.

When she infiltrates the compound using a henge, she finds a redheaded girl her own age in the infirmary with a man biting her forearm. Hotaru doesn’t hesitate before she throws a kunai at the vulnerable nape of his neck. Zosui catches the kunai and hurls it back at her while the girl squeezes her eyelids shut and clenches her teeth in a futile attempt to keep quiet. Hotaru channels her chakra into her feet and jumps, forming a one-handed ram seal in midair.

 _Lightning-Style_ , she thinks, _Thunderclap Arrow!_

Thunder booms as the lightning arrow strikes him in the chest and pins him to the wall behind him. Hotaru uses her Byakugan to look around for witnesses and make sure that her target is dead before she grabs the girl around the waist and channels bursts of chakra into her arms to hold her over her shoulder while she flickers out of Kusagakure and into the bamboo forest beyond the grassland that surrounds the hidden village at lightning speed. There are kamon on the sleeves and back of her tattered komon that match the spiral on the back of the chuunin flak jacket that Konoha shinobi always wear—the vivid red whirlpools of the Uzumaki clan.

“Who are you?” the girl shrieks as Hotaru forms the seal to undo her chakra suppression jutsu and dispels the henge. “Where are we going?”

Hotaru activates the ketsu tags she concealed all over the forest of bamboo trees before she infiltrated Kusagakure to create a labyrinthine barrier in case any trackers are chasing her. “I’m Kei,” she says, using her codename, “a chuunin of Konohagakure no Sato. You’re an Uzumaki, I can tell by your kamon and your chakra. There’s an Uzumaki in Konoha. If you want to meet him, shut up and come home with me.”

“You’re a Hyuuga,” the girl retorts. “I can tell by your eyes.”

Hotaru exhales a huff of air. “Un,” she says. “What’s your name?”

“Karin,” the girl tells her, “my name is Uzumaki Karin.”

* * *

Hotaru meets Tokuma and Iroha at the border of Bamboo Country and Fire Country and lets Tokuma piggyback Karin to the gates of Konoha. Iroha carries the princess after Tokuma heals the strained muscles in her arms, shoulders, back, and legs. Hotaru suppresses her chakra again more out of habit than anything else while they carry her and the Uzumaki girl to Hokage Tower, where Sarutobi Hiruzen is waiting.

“Hotaru-ojousama,” the Hokage says, “report.”

Hotaru squirms until her caretaker puts her down. Karin made her promise not to tell anyone that she could use an innate ninjutsu called the Uzumaki Ikan healing bite technique, a type of chakra transference unique to the Uzumaki clan. Hotaru keeps her face blank and tries not to stare at the envelope of cash on his desk. According to the shinobi rules and regulations, the life of a B-rank shinobi war criminal is worth 200,000 ryo. Hotaru knows that killing a man should make her feel bad or worse, but all she feels is happy that he won’t ever be able to hurt anyone else. “Sandaime-sama,” she says and bows her head low enough to show the proper respect before she looks him in the eyes, “I used a henge and a lightning-style jutsu to eliminate my target so Kusagakure will be more inclined to suspect Kumogakure of assassinating the warlord than Konohagakure. I also discovered the reason his shinobi have been able to return to the battlefield so quickly. This is Uzumaki Karin-san,” she points to the redhead before she clarifies, “Zosui forced her mother to heal him and his soldiers until she died of chakra overuse. I believe that she is also a descendant of the Kagura bloodline,” she taps the corner of her left eye with two fingers before she clarifies, “she used the Kagura Shingan to help me evade trackers in the bamboo forests before we crossed the border.”

“I’m defecting from Kusagakure,” Karin chimes in. “If you give me a bowl of katsudon, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Hiruzen folds his hands in front of his face to hide a smile. “Was your father an Uzumaki,” he asks, “or your mother?”

“Kaasan,” Karin says, “her name was Uzumaki Uzume. Tousan was Kagura Kuzuryuu.”

Hiruzen still has Yamanaka Inoichi interrogate Karin to confirm the information she gave him while he looks through the Senju clan records that were left behind when Tsunade left the village. Uzume and Uzumaki Kushina were cousins, but Uzume didn’t have the special chakra of a potential jinchuuriki. Ostensibly she fled Uzushiogakure with her betrothed and he died at some point after their daughter was born. Karin doesn’t remember her father dying, but one day he just never came back home. “Your orders were to avoid leaving any witnesses behind,” he says.

Hotaru cocks her head slantwise and shrugs. “I didn’t leave her behind,” she points out, “bringing her back to the village wasn’t a deviation from my orders. It was unequivocally the right choice. Karin-chan has a kekkei genkai from a bloodline we thought was extinct. There are shinobi in this world that would prey on her worse than Zosui did, Orochimaru of the legendary Sannin in particular. I’ve read the latest BINGO book. Anyone who can use a hereditary doujutsu like the Byakugan or the Sharingan is warned not to engage with Orochimaru. Someone young and vulnerable but with the Kagura Shingan and Uzumaki clan levels of chakra would be considered an ideal target.”

Hiruzen sighs. It was unequivocally the right choice to bring the only surviving member of the Kagura clan home with her instead of killing the girl—too many bloodlines went extinct during the Warring States era for him to justify murdering an innocent nine-year-old just for being in the wrong hidden village at the wrong time. Hotaru isn’t even ten yet, but she thinks and speaks like someone much older. Senju Tobirama, his sensei and the one that invented the Hiraishin techniques she inherited, was like her; he grew up too fast and he took everything almost too seriously. “You’re dismissed,” he says and hands over her paycheck with an extra silver monme, “but wait for Karin-san in the library and take her out for katsudon. It’s my treat.”

* * *

Naruto, the only son of Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato, lives in the apartment complex built for wards of the village orphaned by the Kyuubi attack. Umino Iruka-sensei, who teaches at the Academy, lives in the same building. Hotaru and Tokuma drop Karin off at the apartment where Naruto lives—someone from the office of the Hokage stopped by while they ate katsudon to explain who Karin is and why she needs a place to stay before they darken his doorway.

“Hey!” Naruto says and points at Hotaru with one finger, “you look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”

Hotaru tilts her head slantwise and blinks, nonplussed. It’s rude and confrontational to stick your finger in someone’s face like that, but he doesn’t seem to mean anything by the gesture. “I’m Hyuuga Hotaru,” she informs him. “We’ve never met, but my twin sister Hina is your classmate at the Academy.”

“Hina?” Naruto asks her with a frown before his expression flips into a grin of recognition. “Oh, you mean Hinata-chan!”

Hotaru hums. “Un,” she says. _Hina thinks he doesn’t know her name_ , she thinks and smiles more to herself than at him, _she’ll be thrilled he remembers her_.

Naruto beams at her before he side-eyes Tokuma and frowns again. “Who’s this?” he asks. “Your bodyguard?”

Hotaru nods. “Tokuma-niisan has been protecting me since I was born,” she says. “I only hope that someday I’ll be worthy of his loyalty.”

Tokuma was nine years old when the Kyuubi attacked the village. Hyuuga Makoto, his father, was just one of many people killed during the battle that ensued; Takumi and Hanae, his grandparents, were two more. Tokuma doesn’t blame Naruto since he was an infant at the time and he didn’t choose to become an orphan or a jinchuuriki, but that doesn’t mean he likes the hyperactive kid. “Hotaru-sama,” he says, “you’re sparring with Hiashi-sama in forty-five minutes.”

Hotaru exhales with enough force to flare her nostrils and groans internally. “I literally ran from the border of Fire Country to Bamboo Country and back again,” she grumbles, “that was enough training for one day.”

Tokuma ducks his head to hide a smirk. “Your range has gotten farther,” he points out. “You teleported us from the border to Konoha.”

Naruto gapes at her. “You teleported? Like, with space-time ninjutsu? Not just the Body Flicker technique?”

Hotaru taps one of the special triple-bladed kunai in the holster on her thigh. “Un,” she says.

Naruto beams exponentially wider. “You’re awesome, Hotaru-chan!” he tells her, “dattebayo!”

Tokuma grits his teeth. “Hotaru-sama is a _lady_ ,” he says, “she belongs to the main house of a noble clan. Don’t get so familiar, Uzumaki.”

Hotaru rolls her eyes at her protector. Karin emerges from the bathroom and glares at him balefully. “Uzumaki is a noble clan too,” she retorts with a haughty pinch in her voice, “our whirlpool kamon is all over Konoha. I don’t see _your_ family crest on the back of every flak jacket in this village.”

 _This is why most people think we’re snobs_ , Hotaru glances down at the red and yellow kamon ironed on the shoulder of her black long-sleeved shirt and thinks, _because most Hyuuga put on airs by wearing kimono everywhere and speak using keigo. I don’t want people to think that about me_. “It’s fine,” she interjects. “We’re the same age, so I’ll call you Naruto-kun. Okay?”

Naruto flips Tokuma off before he turns and grins at her. “Sure,” he says, “would you show me your space-time jutsu sometime?”

“I’m going to escort Karin-chan around the village tomorrow and take her shopping for more than just the bare necessities,” Hotaru says. “I’ll show you then. I’m also inviting both of you to dinner at the main house tomorrow night. We’re having tempura.”

Karin flicks her gaze to Tokuma and smiles caustically. “I love tempura,” she says.

Naruto gapes at her again as she tucks her hands in the pockets of her flak jacket because nobody has ever invited him over for dinner. Until now. Naruto shuts his mouth and swallows thickly. “Yeah,” he says. “We’ll be there.”

* * *

When she tells him that she invited Uzumaki Naruto to dinner, Hiashi is _gobsmacked_. “You cannot just invite a jinchuuriki into our home,” he snaps at her as she blocks his strikes and spins out of range.

Hotaru wheezes and holds up one hand to throw a Sky Palm at her father that he flawlessly deflects with his Eight Trigrams: Heavenly Spin. It hurls the force of her attack back at her and she flips backward to avoid the downward spiral. “I can,” she retorts breathlessly, “and I did.”

“Uzumaki Naruto is a menace,” Hiashi says, “the vessel of a demon.”

Hotaru cocks her head slantwise and forces herself not to look back over her shoulder at Hinata in her periphery. “We’re lucky that Naruto-kun only pulls harmless pranks and proclaims he’s going to become the Hokage someday to get attention,” she huffs, “instead of hating the village that shuns him. I treated him like a person instead of a pariah and he was so happy he lit up from the inside. We are Hyuuga,” she pauses and blocks his Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms with her open palms against his forearms to stop him from hitting any of her tenketsu with his fingers before she kicks him hard in the stomach and puts enough of her chakra into the blow to send him flying. “We’re the best shinobi this village has to offer. We could be setting an example by treating him better. Which is what I’m doing tomorrow night. If you don’t want to have dinner with us, then don’t.”

“So,” Hiashi says and moves into a Gentle Fist stance that Hotaru has never seen before, “you didn’t invite him to have dinner with us because your sister…” Hinata flinches and he wrinkles his nose in disgust before he adds, “…has a crush on him?”

Hotaru moves into a defensive stance and eyes him warily. It feels like her lungs are spontaneously combusting every time she inhales and everything hurts—the muscles in her legs are screaming at her to stop fighting. There’s no way in hell she’s going to defeat her father tonight, but now she can’t quit. “When the Kyuubi was sealed into his body, he was only a few hours old. Naruto-kun didn’t choose to become the vessel of a demon,” she tells him softly, “he didn’t have a chance, but we still do. So,” she says, “are we the best shinobi this village has to offer, or are we cowards who hold an innocent boy responsible for something that wasn’t his choice, or his fault?”

Hiashi doesn’t falter in his stance, but shock is evident in the look on his face. Ageha had said almost the same thing to him after Kou told him that his second daughter was infatuated with the jinchuuriki boy. Hinata resembles his wife the most in looks and in the minutiae of her mannerisms, but Hotaru inherited her ferocious sense of justice from their mother. Ageha was kind and gentle, but she was never weak. “I think you’re ready to learn a new technique,” he says, “watch closely. Eight Trigrams: One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Palms!”

Hotaru is too exhausted to Hiraishin out of range before her father has a chance to strike her, but she’s too proud to take a hundred and twenty-eight blows so instead she flickers and winces at the sensation of her thigh muscles straining. Iroha catches her before she collapses behind the gnarled tree in the main house training ground, thirty-two of her tenketsu blocked and bruised from the chakra needles her father used on her before she formed the seal to flicker out of range. Hinata sets her jaw and watches Tokuma heal her twin sister from the sidelines. _Oneesama was brave enough to fight Otousama for Naruto-kun with her fists and with her words_ , she thinks. _I’ll be strong, too_.

* * *

Hotaru wakes up the next morning to the sounds of birds chirping up a storm outside her window and grimaces, her mouth dry from snoozing with her mouth open. It’s almost noon—meaning she missed breakfast since the main house eats at 7 AM sharp—and Hotaru can’t believe that her father didn’t send Iroha or Tokuma to wake her up hours ago. Hiashi isn’t the kind of parent who lets his children sleep in, even if they passed out from chakra exhaustion the night before.

It’s the first time in two years that she hasn’t gotten up around 3:30 AM for training. Hotaru is a prodigy, but that doesn’t mean she gets to slack off; she trains and studies for twelve hours a day when she isn’t on a mission. Gentle Fist sparring fundamentals and stamina training for three hours in the morning with Iroha, ninjutsu studies and practice for three hours after breakfast, three hours of bukijutsu training with Tokuma after lunch, and three hours of specialized Gentle Fist training and Byakugan honing with her father after dinner.

Anko-sensei used to meet her during the second morning slot to help teach her about poisons and brewing antidotes, and Hotaru still takes small increments of different poisons once a week or so to build up her immunity. Hotaru likes Anko-sensei, but when she was a genin she got a weird feeling that her sensei thought having a student with the Byakugan might be a means to the end of finding and killing Orochimaru someday and she didn’t appreciate being used for that. Anko-sensei also taught her some basic fire-style ninjutsu and advanced genjutsu, but nothing serpentine because her father explicitly forbid her to study the slithering kinjutsu that Orochimaru had taught his student—the only forbidden jutsu she learned from her sensei were the Shadow Clone technique and a genjutsu called Self-Bondage Eye.

Kakashi always used to meet her at night during an extra time slot that cut into her sleep for months, but learning the Hiraishin was totally worth it. Sometimes he pops in and watches her practice the lightning-style jutsu that he taught her while he rereads _Icha Icha Violence_ , the second book in a series of smutty romance novels written by Jiraiya of the legendary Sannin. Only someone with a doujutsu kekkei genkai like the Byakugan or the Sharingan can use the Chidori and Raikiri, because the speed of the lightning strike causes severe tunnel vision that people without superior visual prowess can’t power through. Hotaru still hasn’t perfected the Chidori: Electric Current, her version of the Lightning Cutter: using the blade of her kodachi as the conduit to control her electric chakra. It’s a moot point at the moment, though; she won’t be able to hold a sword for a few days because of what her father did to her arms.

Hotaru lifts her arms up over her head and stares at the contusions on her skin; her tenketsu are unblocked now and her muscles aren’t as sore as they could’ve been, but Tokuma didn’t heal the bruises. Maybe her father told her protector to let them be, to remind her that she hasn’t surpassed him. Yet.

 _I’ve surpassed his level when he was my age_ , she thinks, _I was able to block and evade most of his attacks last night even though my chakra was drained and my muscles were strained from my mission._ _It’s only a matter of time before I beat him. I’ll be the youngest head of the Hyuuga clan in history if I can defeat him before my twentieth birthday_.

Hotaru rolls out of her bed and glances down at herself as she performs the seal to suppress her chakra like she does every morning. Someone must’ve changed her clothes while she was out because she’s not wearing her sweaty regulation blacks or her flak jacket anymore. Just her long nightgown with the buttons done up all the way to her throat. Although her underwear is the same. Hotaru puts on a fresh pair before she changes into clean regulation blacks with the red and yellow Hyuuga emblem on the shoulder and finds her flak jacket hanging on the door of her wardrobe. It’s clean too, but all the scrolls in her pockets are intact. Hotaru typically carries five scrolls—one full of special Hiraishin kunai, one where she wrote the jutsushiki formula for Hiraishin seals in her best calligraphy that she can use to transfer a copy of the seal to any enemy she wants to mark, one with a list of lightning-style jutsu she wants to master and notes from Kakashi on how to practice them, one where she wrote out sequences of hand seals for jutsu that she wants to modify so they only need one seal instead of many to make them work, one full of sealed supplies she can use in the event that her squad gets spontaneously deployed on a mission—and a paperback book.

After she wraps her weighted training bandages around her tender forearms and sore legs from knees to heels, she pulls on her fingerless gloves and straps her weapons holster to her thigh. Tokuma is waiting at the foot of the stairs with a bento wrapped in a furoshiki when she begins her quest to find her boots. “Hinata-sama made it,” he says. “There’s leftover tororo soba from last night and savory tamagoyaki with cheese.”

Hotaru bites her bottom lip to stifle a smile. Their father hates eggs and cheese. Hinata knows that and Hotaru knows this is her sister’s way of cheering her on. “I love tororo soba,” she says and tucks her bento in the messenger bag slung over her shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Tokuma says dutifully and resists the urge to ruffle her fluffy hair. “How do your arms feel, Hotaru-sama?”

Hotaru cocks her head slantwise and shrugs. “I’ll heal,” she deadpans and bows to him with her hands folded in front of her like a lady before she turns on her heels and walks down the hall to the genkan where her boots are waiting.

Tokuma watches her tug her boots on and folds his arms as a sliver of a smile unfurls from one corner of his lips. Sometimes he feels sad because she never had a chance to just be a kid, but he’s so proud of who she’s growing up to be. Hotaru respects the members of the branch house enough to lower her head, to show her appreciation for him and everything he does to protect her instead of taking his loyalty for granted. It makes him want to protect the princess out of something other than his duty—out of loyalty to _her_ instead of the clan.

Hotaru is going to become one hell of a leader someday, if her training regimen doesn’t kill her before she surpasses her father. It’s a day Tokuma hopes they both live to see.

* * *

Naruto took Karin with him to the Academy that morning, so Hotaru has a few hours to kill; she eats her bento at the third training ground and spends two hours practicing the Eight Trigrams palm technique her father threw at her. After that, she takes a shower at a public bathhouse and changes into a black sleeveless dress with buttons from the high collar that obscures her neck and chin to where the flat hem stops a few centimeters below her knees. Hotaru puts a pair of shorts on underneath the skirt of her dress and shrugs her unzipped flak jacket back on before she goes to pick the only surviving members of the Uzumaki clan up from school.

“Karin-chan aced her transfer student exam, dattebayo!” Naruto tells her with a big grin on his face. “Iruka-sensei told us she’s gonna be a year ahead of our class,” he turns and looks at her sister for confirmation before he says, “ne, Hinata-chan?”

Hinata blushes from the roots of her hair all the way down her neck and taps her fingertips together anxiously in front of her. “Y-Yes,” she stammers, “the s-s-same class as N-Neji-niisan.”

Karin adjusts her glasses and glances at Hotaru. “Your cousin is the prissy one with the hair, right?” she asks.

Hotaru guffaws and covers her mouth with one palm to smother the unladylike sound. _I like his hair_ , she thinks. _It’s pretty. Unlike mine_. “Un,” she says out loud.

“What did you say?” Neji wants to know.

Hotaru turns and looks at him over her shoulder. Neji doesn’t have any friends at the Academy; he keeps to himself when he can and acts aloof when he can’t. Hotaru shouldn’t think he’s adorable when he sneers, but she’s not the only one. There’s a gaggle of girls watching Neji and giggling to each other.

It reminds her of how Izumi used to stop and stare at Itachi, before he killed her with his Tsukuyomi. According to her autopsy report, Izumi died of natural causes because his genjutsu altered her perception of time and made her body think she lived a long happy life. It was incongruously kind of Itachi to let her die that way, under the circumstances.

Hotaru puts her conspiracy theory on the backburner and focuses on her cousin. “I like your hair,” she informs him, “but Karin-chan thinks you’re prissy. I have no idea why.”

Neji arches one dark eyebrow at her because her tone says that she knows precisely why her new friend with the obnoxious red hair thinks he’s prissy. It’s likely that Hotaru told Karin he was. Neji side-eyes Naruto and looks at the vulpine boy in his periphery with so much disdain that the temperature around them almost seems to drop before he derisively looks away. “Hinata-sama,” he says flatly. “We should go. We’re sparring this afternoon.”

Hotaru rolls her eyes at him. “Hina is coming with us,” she says.

Neji scoffs. “Hinata-sama isn’t like you, Hotaru-sama,” he retorts, “she can’t afford to miss a training session every once in a while. Not at her level.”

Hotaru opens her mouth to respond when Naruto cuts in: “Don’t talk to Hinata-chan that way, ’ttebayo!”

Neji scowls and exhales harshly through his nose. “Hotaru-sama,” he says curtly, “was that an order?”

Hotaru nods succinctly. “Un,” she says, “I asked Otousama and he agreed.” Which is another way for her to say that he won’t be punished for neglecting Hinata’s training. If anyone from the main house implies that he made a mistake, they’ll be directly challenging the authority of the head of the clan instead of needling a member of the branch house who can’t fight back without repercussions. Hotaru bites down on the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling at him because she knows he would take it the wrong way and she doesn’t want to add fuel to the fire of his impotent rage.

 _I’m going protect them all with my own hands_ , he remembers her bold words loud and clear, _even from each other_.

Neji stares at her with his eyes narrowed before he clenches his hands into fists and bows, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bend of his neck and back; it doesn’t break him like he thought it might, although it did make his stomach churn with visceral discomfort at the unspoken vulnerability he offered her. Still, part of him is bitter that she thinks he needs her protection at all when it’s his destiny to protect her side of their accursed family. “I see,” he says.

“What the hell was that?” Naruto asks as Neji abruptly walks away.

Hotaru sighs. “Hyuuga clan stuff,” she murmurs. “I’m the heir. Neji-niisan isn’t.”

Which is a gross oversimplification of the Hyuuga, but their main house and branch house divide is technically a clan secret—if only because the caged bird curse seal is a secret main family technique only the elders and clan leader know. Hotaru knows from her research in the clan archives that every member of the clan was marked with the seal before its temporary formula was altered into something the main family uses to control the branch house, after a civil war broke out among two rival branches lead by a pair of twins and their father—the seventy-fifth head of the clan—branded his younger son and his branch with the current form of the curse mark. Other shinobi clans in Konoha have a hierarchy—the Aburame have sects, the Inuzuka have packs—and they all have a main family, but none of them are oppressive in quite the same way.

Hotaru tilts her head slantwise and tucks her hands in the pockets of her flak jacket as Karin scrutinizes her with shrewd eyes as red as her hair. Uzushiogakure was destroyed before she got tangled in the intricate web of interclan politics that would’ve been a fact of her life as a girl born into two noble bloodlines. Being orphaned by a bastard who treated her and her mother like pieces of meat he wanted to chew up and spit out wasn’t the fate she would’ve chosen for herself, but she’s autonomous in a way that Hotaru will never be. It might be more of a luxury than she originally thought.


	3. Anthurium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) It makes no sense that Naruto wasn’t taught how to control his chakra at the Academy. I know Kakashi, Ebisu, and Jiraiya taught him that when they did so Kishimoto could infodump the exposition and worldbuilding in the manga, but Iruka should’ve realized why he was failing to bunshin and taught him better. It’s ludicrous that shinobi who can’t perform ninjutsu or genjutsu without hemorrhaging chakra would be allowed to go on missions outside the village. I know it’s semi-realistic in that a public elementary school education doesn’t adequately prepare anyone for living in the real world, but damn. If you’re going to build a culture around turning children into soldiers with magical ninja powers, your curriculum should at least include basic fundamentals like “what is your elemental chakra affinity?” and “this is how chakra works and this is how you can learn to control it perfectly so you don’t waste your energy.”
> 
> (2) I chose to include the modern Japanese coming-of-age ceremony 「成人式」 rather than a more archaic tradition called genpuku 「元服」 because even though children in the _Naruto_ universe are working as shinobi, they’re still children. Also, the legal drinking age is canonically twenty so the legal age of adulthood being twenty makes the most sense.

**Frequently the edges**  
**of me dissolve and I become**  
**a wish to assimilate the world, including**  
**you, if possible through the skin**  
**like a cool plant’s tricks with oxygen**  
**and live by a harmless green burning.**

 **I would not consume**  
**you or ever**  
**finish, you would still be there**  
**surrounding me, complete**  
**as the air.**

 **Unfortunately I don’t have leaves.**  
**Instead I have eyes**  
**and teeth and other non-green**  
**things which rule out osmosis.**

Margaret Atwood, “More and More”

* * *

_Parhelion_  
**Part I** :  
Aphelion  
**Chapter 3** :  
Anthurium

* * *

_Anthurium flowers in general mean either anxiety or “the heart that falters in love” in Japanese flower language. These flowers can also be called flamingo lilies. Anthurium flowers in Western flower language mean hospitality_.

* * *

**60 NSE**

* * *

Hotaru was diagnosed with jiheisho spectrum disorder by Suzume-sensei during her first year at the Academy. Hiashi still refuses to acknowledge her disability in spite of the diagnosis being confirmed by multiple experts, but he doesn’t seem to mind the way she hyperfocuses on her training and studies. Hotaru being on the spectrum is arguably part of what makes her a prodigy—her twice exceptional brain was made for strategic thinking and spiraling kata.

Naruto bombards her with bright and babbling questions for most of the afternoon. According to Hinata, his test scores are notoriously bad. It makes her wonder if Naruto might have some kind of learning disability or ADHD, because he clearly isn’t stupid; he beams at her while she infodumps and he never asks her to explain anything more than once.

Hinata is over the moon on their way back to the Hyuuga compound. It’s only a matter of time before she passes out from the pure bliss of being in proximity to the boy she likes. Hotaru would take more than a hundred and twenty-eight blows every night to make her twin sister this happy.

 _Hina’s love is pure_ , she thinks as she steps into the genkan and takes her boots off, _I almost envy her_.

“Why do you suppress your chakra like that when you’re not on a mission?” Karin asks. “It looks weird muted.”

Hotaru rises to her feet and slips her fingerless gloves into one of the pockets on the front of her flak jacket. “It helps increase my capacity without overloading my system,” she answers.

Karin adjusts her glasses and narrows her eyes at Hotaru through her thick lenses. “Your chakra is too bright,” she snaps. “You shouldn’t be smothering it.”

Hotaru bites her bottom lip to stifle a grin. _Tsundere_ , she thinks. “I’ll meet you in the dining room in five minutes,” she says as she extracts the plastic bag that contains her sweaty regulation blacks from her messenger bag. “Hina can show you where to sit.”

“O-Oneesama,” Hinata stutters, “shouldn’t we ch-ch-change for d-dinner?”

Hotaru chews on the inside of her cheek and shrugs. “No,” she says, “because I don’t think most of the clan will show up. It might be just us and Otousama.”

“Oh,” Hinata mumbles, “I see.”

Naruto hunches his shoulders in a futile attempt to make himself look smaller. “You mean because I’m here,” he deduces.

“Un,” Hotaru says and smiles at him as she catches sight of her second cousins Hibari and Hirano crouched behind the fusuma that separate the main hallway from the genkan. “I can’t wait to see who comes and who doesn’t. It’s always good to know who your enemies are, especially in your own household.”

Naruto squares the slump out of his shoulders as the eavesdroppers scuttle away like rats scared they almost got caught in a trap. “Your sister is kind of scary,” he tells Hinata with a grin. “It’s awesome.”

“Oneesama is k-kind like our mother,” Hinata says, “and strong like our father. I’ve always w-wanted to be m-more like her.”

Naruto watches Hotaru walk barefoot down the hall to drop her sweaty regulation blacks off in the laundry room and frowns. “I don’t think you should be like her,” he says. “Hotaru-chan is Hotaru-chan and Hinata-chan is Hinata-chan. Just be who you are, dattebayo!”

Hotaru tucks a stray tuft of fluffy hair behind her ear and smiles as Hinata flushes bright red from the roots of her hair all the way down her neck to the hollow of her throat. After she exits the laundry room, she extracts her lunchbox and chopsticks from her bag and steps into the kitchen to put them in the dishwasher; the countertops are festooned with plates that haven’t been taken into the dining hall yet and the sink is full of soaking dishes. Hotaru knows that she shouldn’t be neglecting her duty as heiress and hostess to accompany her guests while they’re inside the family compound, but Hinata needs to learn how to get comfortable with Naruto if she wants to be friends with him and she doesn’t want to get in their way.

Naruto is oblivious to the depth of Hinata’s feelings, but for now that’s okay. Hotaru just wants her twin sister to have a friend outside of the clan—a friend who’ll make her believe that she’s not weak or worthless. Hinata is nine and a half, so the elders won’t betroth her to anyone for another three and a half years and they won’t make her marry anyone until after their coming-of-age ceremony. Unless she gets pregnant at sixteen like their aunt did in order to marry the man she loves instead of her betrothed from the main house. Hinata blushes so hot that she almost spontaneously combusts from being in close proximity to Naruto, though, so that seems highly unlikely.

“You planned this.”

Hotaru swallows hard before she turns and looks at her cousin. Neji is leaning back against the wall by the doorway with his arms folded tight across his chest, wearing a casual black and white kimono instead of his training outfit or the shirt and pants that he wore to school. Hotaru stifles a smile at the sight of his scowl. “I’ll marry someone from the main house when I’m twenty and have his pure Byakugan babies because it’s my duty as the heir,” she says, “but Hina’s not obligated to marry within the clan if she doesn’t want to. I won’t put my twin sister in a cage like that.”

“Hiashi-sama won’t allow it,” Neji snaps.

Hotaru shrugs. “It’s my destiny to surpass my father,” she retorts. “I want to change the way our clan has always done things,” she points at his forehead and he grabs her wrist reflexively to stop her from touching him before she says, “someday I’ll break your curse.”

Neji clenches his jaw and tightens his grip on her wrist because he wants to make her flinch. It’s the first time he’s touched her in years and he can’t get over how soft the thin pale skin on the inside of her wrist is. Neji squeezes harder because he wants to leave his mark on her skin, a mark that goes deeper than the bruises on her arms or the seal on his forehead. It’s a curse that will only break when he fulfills his destiny and dies to protect the main house like his father did. _Hotaru-sama has accepted her fate as the first daughter of the main household_ , he thinks, _so why can’t she accept that Hinata-sama must do her duty as the second daughter and marry within the clan? It doesn’t make any sense_. “Was that a threat?” he wants to know.

Hotaru shakes her head slowly and forces herself to stare into his eyes, unflinching. “No,” she says. “It’s a promise.”

Neji drops her hand and scoffs at her before he turns on his heels and walks out of the kitchen. Hotaru bites her lip and uses the Hiraishin to teleport herself into her room where nobody can see her blushing.

* * *

After she takes her flak jacket off, she stares at her reflection in the mirror until her cheeks turn from pink to pale and twists her fluffy hair up into a bun. Hotaru uses three plastic clips to hold it back and hopes it won’t spiral out of control until dinner is over.

When she walks into the dining hall, most of the clan is seated on the matching square cushions around the rectangles of low polished oak tables set with plates of tempura and an assortment of side dishes: rice, harumaki, yaki onigiri made using leftover sweet unagi sauce, miso soup with green onions, tofu, and nori, kinpira gobou, and kabocha simmered with shio koji. Naruto looks uncomfortable because he’s not used to seiza, but Karin glares at him every time he squirms to get more comfortable on his cushion. Neji is glowering at the kabocha because someone with a sick sense of humor put that side dish in front of him even though everyone knows he hates pumpkins and most squash.

Hotaru sits on her cushion in between Hiashi and Hinata before she uses her chopsticks to serve herself spring rolls and yaki onigiri with tarako filling—one of the many upsides of having the Byakugan is that you never get onigiri with filling that you don’t like. Hiashi is served the first cup of tea from one of three pots Natsu carries on a tray: white tip oolong tea, green tea or black tea. Hotaru is served tea second, then her grandfather Hiroki, then her grandmother Honoka, then her granduncle Haboshi, then her grandfather Hatori. Hinata and Hanabi are served after the elders, and everyone who belongs to the main house is served tea before everyone who belongs to the branch house.

Karin and Naruto are served last, but only the redhead seems to understand the insult inherent in that. Naruto doesn’t understand the petty nuances of clans like the Hyuuga because he wasn’t raised in a noble household. Karin does understand because she became the ward of a warlord after her mother died, and she was too low in the hierarchy of his household to have a seat at his table.

There are thirty-two people in the dining hall because eight Hyuuga are on missions outside the village, mostly branch family. Tokuma is sitting with his mother Ibuki, his younger sister Ruri, twins Kinu and Saya, and their brother Megumi. Iroha, Kou, and Natsu are sitting with their parents, her aunt Hitomi and uncle Hajime, their aunt Himari and uncle Hikaru, their cousins Tou, Hoheto, and Futaba and their grandfather Osamu. Haboshi, a widower, is sitting with his children and grandchildren: Hiruma, his wife Hatoko, their sons Hikage and Hokuto, and twin daughters Hibari and Hirano. Midori has been on a mission with her ANBU squad for almost two months now, so Neji is sitting with his branch house cousins. There are some tables with only main house and some with only branch house, but others are an amalgamation. Hotaru sips her tea and indulges herself in the fantasy of a future where that divide no longer exists before she uses her chopsticks to grab a piece of veggie tempura. Naruto is eating mostly shrimp tempura, but Hotaru prefers fried potatoes to shellfish.

Karin adjusts her glasses and side-eyes Hotaru. “So why did you take the chuunin exams by yourself?” she asks. “Hanabi-chan says the Hokage gave you special permission.”

Hotaru bites down on the inside of her cheek and forces herself not to flinch. “Un,” she says, “but it’s not because I’m special or anything—it was because my teammates died before we could take the exams together. Izumi was murdered by her cousin along with their entire clan and Ageha-kun was killed in action.”

“Izumi-san and I-Itachi were c-cousins?” Hinata asks. “I th-thought he was her b-b-boyfriend.”

Hotaru exhales sharply through her nose and forces herself not to clutch at her teacup with her fingertips. “Un,” she echoes, “she was his first cousin—their mothers were sisters—and he was also her boyfriend. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Nidaime-sama married his first cousin, Senju Touka.”

Izumi activated her Sharingan before the prodigal Itachi did even though her father wasn’t an Uchiha, so the head of the clan had wanted to bring her into the main bloodline. Itachi didn’t have much time for Izumi between training and missions, but they still fell in love. Izumi used to tell Hotaru that she reminded her of Itachi, which is kind of disturbing in hindsight. Although their career trajectories are oddly similar: they’re both geniuses who graduated from the Academy when they were seven, they both took the chuunin exams solo and passed on the first try, they both have younger siblings with a five-year age gap and they were both heirs to clans with hereditary doujutsu.

Hotaru sips her tea and swallows hard as her heart clenches horribly in the cage of her ribs. If she chased the coil of nausea unfurling in her stomach, she knows she’d be able to inhale the phantom smell of blood congealing on the tatami mats in that house on the outskirts of the Uchiha district. Hotaru has to force herself not to close her eyes because she doesn’t want to relive the sight of Hazuki and Izumi on the night of the Uchiha massacre, a pair of dead bodies slumped at odd angles on the floor with ichor dripping out of their empty eye sockets like gruesome tears. _I miss Izumi_ , she thinks, _my first real friend_.

“There aren’t many clans left in Konoha that follow all the old ways,” Hiashi says, “the Uchiha did and the Hyuuga still do. Your great-grandparents were first cousins. We use genetic screening and genome sequencing to keep the bloodlines from getting too close.”

Hanabi squeals about how gross that is while Hotaru looks at Neji in her periphery; Hinata is too busy sneaking glances at Naruto to notice their cousin watching her.

* * *

Hotaru invites Naruto and Karin over for dinner the week after that, and every Friday after that. It triggers some fallout with the other shinobi clans, but Hotaru being the instigator softens the blow somewhat because her conduct as a shinobi has been flawless otherwise in spite of her young age. Hotaru doesn’t care if people think she’s a spoiled brat whose father has been too indulgent of her whims; she’s not going to stop doing what she thinks is right no matter what people say about her. There’s no point in having power and privilege if she can’t use those advantages to help the people who don’t.

Most of the elders don’t approve of her tarnishing the reputation of the Hyuuga by associating with a jinchuuriki, but they can’t do anything to stop her. Hotaru, as the future head of the clan, technically outranks them in the family hierarchy. Hiashi, the current head of the clan, is the only person with the authority to order her around. Hotaru being the prodigal first daughter makes her position within the clan unassailable. Neither of her sisters and none of her cousins from the main house are on her level, and they all think it’s her destiny to surpass her father. Hotaru is aware of that and even though she doesn’t know if she believes in the determinism her family is rooted in, she’s not above using their belief in fate to get her way.

Naruto comes over unannounced one afternoon. When he tries to enter the Hyuuga compound unaccompanied, Neji stops him before the branch house guards on patrol by the gates can swarm him.

“It’s Wednesday,” Neji informs him flatly, “you’re not welcome here right now.”

Naruto huffs. “I’m looking for Hotaru-chan,” he retorts.

“Hotaru- _sama_ is training,” Neji snaps and gnashes his teeth around the honorific, “she doesn’t have spare time to hang out with a failure like you.”

Neji doesn’t know about the Kyuubi because he’s not even a genin yet and that knowledge is restricted to shinobi who rank chuunin or higher, but something about Naruto still rubs him the wrong way. Maybe it’s the way Hinata is always watching him with a lovesick look in her eyes, or the way Hotaru has taken him under her wing. Neji is _jealous_ of the brat—so jealous he feels it rising in the back of his throat and spiraling deep in his gut—and he hates himself for succumbing to petty emotions that he feels are beneath him.

“Naruto-kun,” Tokuma interjects before Neji has a chance to verbally eviscerate the younger boy, “Hotaru-sama is practicing her bukijutsu at the third training ground—she’ll be there for another hour if you want to see her in action.”

Naruto grins at him. “Thanks, Shugonin-san!” he says before he turns on his heels and runs full tilt in the direction of the third training ground.

Neji arches his eyebrows at that. Naruto doesn’t often use honorifics in conjunction with the rude nicknames he bestows on people, and Tokuma was openly hostile toward him a few months ago. _What changed?_ he wonders.

Tokuma watches Neji run after the blond and stifles a smile. Naruto isn’t the friend he would’ve chosen for Hotaru, but at least she’s hanging out with someone her own age on a regular basis instead of reading voraciously whenever she’s not training. Tokuma doesn’t want her to spend the rest of her life isolated from her peers, with no bonds outside of the Hyuuga clan. If she wants to change the oppressive way their clan has done things since the curse seal was created, she needs allies. Naruto becoming Hokage is a long shot, but it would help make her dream come true and that’s all Tokuma wants.

Hotaru stretches and runs through solo practice kata using a wooden sword before she unsheathes her kodachi and slips into waki-gamae, a stance designed to conceal the blade of the sword behind the body. It’s perfect for shorter blades like the kodachi, and for the jutsu she uses to increase her striking distance. Hotaru forms the Raiton seal with her left hand and spins into an ude-furi at lighting speed with both hands on her blade. _Chidori: Electric Current!_ she thinks and strikes the wooden post in front of her. It splits in half before the voltage generated by her jutsu obliterates her target.

 _It seems like everything I create is a weapon_ , she thinks. _I don’t know how I feel about that._ _If being a ninja wasn’t an option for me, what the hell would I even do with my life?_

“Hotaru-chan!” Naruto yells and waves to her with both arms flapping above his head after she turns and looks at him over her shoulder. “So you can use a sword, huh? Shugonin-san said you were practicing bukijutsu, but I thought he meant shuriken or kunai or something.”

Hotaru cocks her head slantwise and shakes her head. Neji is watching her from a tree about half a kilometer away, and she can feel his eyes on her without activating her Byakugan. “I could train using shuriken or kunai at home,” she informs him, “but this jutsu is kind of destructive. Since the targets at the training grounds are replaced by genin assigned D-rank missions after they’re destroyed, it’s better to train here.”

Naruto eyes the hitai-ate tied around her head to hold her hair back like a headband instead of worn on her forehead. “Iruka-sensei says I can’t master any ninjutsu because I don’t have control over my chakra,” he tells her, “you said that your chakra suppression technique helps you control your chakra. Teach it to me.”

Hotaru chews on the inside of her cheek. “It’s not just a suppression technique,” she says. “Those are designed to conceal your chakra signature from other shinobi, not limit the amount of chakra you can use. I control the flow of chakra through the pathways inside my body so I can only use a set amount of chakra in battle or training, instead of all my chakra. Most chakra users have a finite capacity for chakra, but my chakra reserves are theoretically infinite. I can still overload my system by increasing my reserves too quickly or surpassing the limit I imposed on myself if I don’t undo the suppression jutsu, but that won’t kill me. I just get knocked out. It could potentially kill you, even though you’re an Uzumaki.”

According to Karin, members of the Uzumaki clan sometimes have a higher capacity for chakra than other chakra users. Those reserves aren’t theoretically infinite, though. Hotaru knows he could generate a massive amount of chakra by tapping into the power of the Kyuubi, but she’s not allowed to tell him that so it’s a moot point—and it wouldn’t help him learn how to control his chakra output anyway.

Naruto folds his arms in front of his chest with his elbows sticking out sharply and narrows his eyes at her. Hotaru talks like Iruka-sensei when he lectures his class on fundamentals. Hinata told him that her twin sister graduated from the Academy early and she was promoted to chuunin as a rookie genin, but it’s still kind of weird listening to a girl who’s two whole months younger than him sound like someone much older. “So,” he says, “does that mean you can’t help me?”

“I can teach you other ways to control your chakra,” Hotaru clarifies, “but it seems like all of the lectures the Academy uses to explain how chakra works aren’t helping you learn anything. So…”

Naruto watches her seal her swords into her weapons scroll and eyes her warily as she puts the scroll back in her pocket. “So?” he asks.

“So,” Hotaru says and holds her hand out to him palm up, “give me your arm.”

Naruto hands over his right arm. Hotaru grabs him by the elbow with one hand before she activates her Byakugan and uses her Tenketsushin to hit a dozen of his tenketsu with the other. Naruto yelps and yanks his arm out of her grasp. “Ow!” he shouts indignantly. “What the hell was that?”

“This is a secret technique used by the Hyuuga clan,” Hotaru says. “It’s called the chakra point needle. I’m going to control the flow of your chakra and help you perform a simple jutsu. This is a C-rank wind-style ninjutsu called the Gale Palm. It creates a gale of wind you can use to increase your velocity during a fight or knock your opponent down,” she gestures at the wooden targets she didn’t obliterate before she adds, “or increase the speed of your kunai and shuriken in midair after you throw them and change their trajectory to hit multiple targets. Now, do what I do. Snake, Ram, Boar, Horse, Bird,” she forms the sequence of seals with precise movements of her fingers and palms before she claps her hands together and strikes one of the wooden targets while Naruto strikes the other.

Naruto gapes as both cylinders of wood get knocked over by a strong gust of wind infused with chakra, the impact of the gale digging a grove into the dirt and uprooting the grass. “I did it!” he shouts and points at the felled targets, “mine was even stronger than yours, dattebayo!”

“Okay,” Hotaru says and holds her hand out imperiously, “arm.”

Naruto reluctantly hands his right arm over to her again. Hotaru presses her palm against the skin of his forearm and uses her chakra to unblock his tenketsu. Naruto unclenches because it doesn’t hurt—the pulse of her chakra feels like static buzzing softly over his skin. Hotaru scrutinizes the slump of his shoulders as she lets him go and it occurs to her that people don’t touch Uzumaki Naruto if they can help it. _Has anyone ever hugged him?_ she thinks. _Has anyone ever touched him in a way that wasn’t violent?_

“Now,” she says and squeezes his shoulder gently, “try doing it without my help.”

Neji clenches his jaw and exhales sharply through his nose. Hotaru isn’t a particularly tactile person—she doesn’t like to make eye contact or physical contact. Neji has never seen her touch anyone but Hinata and Hanabi outside of her Gentle Fist training, not since that night six years ago when he smacked her hand away from his face. _Hotaru-sama doesn’t seem to have a schoolgirl crush on Naruto like Hinata-sama does_ , he thinks, _Hotaru-sama has never had a crush on anyone—she’s above those kinds of insipid emotions. So why does she keep wasting her time with that worthless brat?_

Naruto hemorrhages chakra when he uses ninjutsu. Neji has never seen anything like his lack of control before. Hinata is hesitant to strike her opponents, but she’s not inept at controlling the flow of her chakra. Most of the Hyuuga are born capable of controlling their chakra perfectly and effortlessly. Hotaru is the exception, but that was because her innate chakra levels were higher than anyone else in the clan at the time of her birth. It’s difficult for a three-year-old to control such massive quantities of energy.

Neji has perfected his control and he knows his chakra level is above average for his age, but watching her with his Byakugan activated puts things in perspective. Hotaru has been meticulously building up her chakra reserves for years, and she’s only going to get stronger. Neji watches her transfer a pair of Hirashin seals from one of the scrolls she carries onto the wooden targets and teleport both of them back into place. _I won’t lose to you_ , he thinks. _I won’t let myself lose to anyone from the main household. I won’t lose to someone like Naruto, either_.


	4. Black Lily

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Sasuke is canonically first in his class out of thirty students in Chapter 221 of the manga. Sakura gets high test scores, but we don’t know her class ranking. Hinata was able to solve all of the problems on the written test during the chuunin exams without cheating—questions that Sakura herself classified as highly advanced—so ostensibly her test scores were also high. According to the first _Naruto_ fanbook, Ino actually scored the highest grades overall at the Academy out of twenty-seven graduates in her class. Sasuke outranked her in ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu. Ino outranked him in all of the other subjects, including attitude.
> 
> (2) It’s canon that Shinto mythology exists in some capacity, since the Uchiha clan names jutsu after kami (e.g. Amaterasu, Kotoamatsukami, Susanoo, Izanami, Izanagi, Kagutsuchi, Honoikazuchi, Ame-no-tajikarao, etc.). Although given the feudal decentralized system of government in canon, I doubt the imperial cult was ever a thing on the scale that it was in the real world. I think shinbutsu-shuugou 「神仏習合」, an amalgamation of Shintoism and Buddhism, is the main religion in the _Naruto_ universe.

**What can you learn from your opponent? More than you think.**  
**Who will master this love? Love might be the wrong word.**

 **Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other.**  
**We know who our enemies are. We know.**

Richard Siken, “Detail of the Fire”

* * *

_Parhelion_  
**Part I** :  
Aphelion  
**Chapter 4** :  
Black Lily

* * *

_Black lilies mean either love or curse in Japanese flower language. These flowers can also be called skunk lilies or outhouse lilies because of their unpleasant smell_.

* * *

**61 NSE**

* * *

Hotaru gets her period the summer after her tenth birthday. There was a lecture on menstruation during the sexual education unit of her kunoichi classes, but she’s not prepared for how bad cramps are. Hiashi is scandalized when the med-nin suggests that she take birth control to combat the symptoms; but after she can’t train for three days because the cramps are so bad, he picks up the prescription for her and puts the paper bag from the pharmacy on top of the pile of books stacked by her bedside. “Your mother was in this much pain during her cycle too,” he says maladroitly as his daughter sits up and pops a pain reliever into her mouth. “I’m told it’s perfectly normal.”

 _I don’t feel normal_ , she thinks and sinks her teeth into the inside of her cheek to stifle a whimper at the sharp corkscrew of sensation taking root below her belly.

Hiashi sighs. “Neji is sparring with Hinata soon,” he says after an eternity of intense awkward silence. “I want you to observe them. Neji is gifted like you, but some of his forms are superior to yours. I won’t allow a member of the branch house to surpass my heir. It’s your destiny to surpass me, so you cannot lose to him.”

Hotaru grits her teeth as her stomach twists and glares at her father even though she’s facing the wall opposite him. _I’m a genius_ , she thinks, _but that’s not enough for Otousama. Hina always does her best at everything, but that’s not good enough for Otousama or the elders. Nothing we do is enough. If that’s our destiny, I don’t want it_.

Hanabi is waiting in the hall when they emerge from Hotaru’s room, still dressed in the clothes she wore to school: an orange sailor blouse with a white collar and a red pleated skirt over black leggings. “Hotaru-neesama!” she squeals and squeezes her older sister into a fierce hug. “Will you play ninja with me?”

Natsu bows her head apologetically with her hands folded in front of her. “Not until you finish your homework, Hanabi-sama,” she says.

Hanabi pouts and squeezes Hotaru so tight it almost makes her throw up inside her mouth before she grits her teeth and squeezes back, since it’s not Hanabi’s fault she feels like her uterus is trying to eat itself. “Okay,” the perspicacious five-year-old says petulantly before she lets her older sister go.

Hotaru is still wearing her nightgown. It’s black with big yellow and white daisies blooming all over the fabric and a row of big shiny buttons from her collarbone to her knees. There’s a pair of matching shorts that she wears underneath her skirt trimmed in frilly white lace. Hotaru is also wearing her weighted training bandages around her forearms and legs, the off-white fabric only a few shades paler than her skin.

Hiroki looks down his nose at her when she walks into the dojo in her pajamas, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s obvious her grandfather thinks she’s being improper, but Hotaru is too busy trying not to vomit all over the floor to care about that. Hiroki and Hiashi are both dressed in semiformal attire: white kimono and black obi underneath their formal haori, thigh-length jackets made of omeshi silk. It’s semiformal because the expensive fabric is woven in solid colors, matte with no complex patterns or embroidery. Hiroki’s haori is brown; Hiashi’s is forest green. Leaf green. Hotaru’s formal haori is black, the absence of all color.

 _I’m taking his silence as a win_ , she thinks and sinks into seiza because she doesn’t want to stand up anymore. Hanabi is peeking in through a gap between the shoji screens across the room, her wide pale eyes visible even in the shadows that creep into the unlit hallways of the main house.

Neji and Hinata are both dressed in black training gear with mesh kusari armor underneath. After he enrolled at the Academy, he was given the headband with straps that Hizashi wore during the Third Shinobi World War when he fought alongside Hiashi on the battlefield and they killed the Sandaime Raikage; it’s thin enough that it doesn’t cover the bandages on his forehead like a hitai-ate would. Neji watches Hotaru fold her hands in her lap and narrows his eyes at her when she smiles at her twin sister. There’s still a fulmination of furcated scar tissue on her shoulder from her training with Kakashi that she wouldn’t let Tokuma heal. Konohagakure has made advancements in the field of medical ninjutsu to the point that the only shinobi with scars are those who always want to remember the lessons they learned from their wounds, or the people who died while they survived with the stigma of cicatrices that are only skin deep. Neji clenches his jaw and forces himself to keep his palms open, even though he wants to snarl his hands into fists.

 _You’re not here to see Hinata-sama_ , he thinks. _You should be watching me_.

According to their family lore, the second head of the Hyuuga clan invented the Gentle Fist. Hourai, the third head of the clan, married a celestial maiden and their children inherited her Byakugan. Most taijutsu styles are closed fist, but ironically the Gentle Fist techniques are performed only with open palms. There are eight basic palms: the upward palm, downward palm, outward palm, embracing palm, cutting palm, enticing palm, splitting palm, and spiraling palm. Most of the Gentle Fist techniques are variations on Kouten and Senten kata. Senten are a fundamental series of eight circular moves with infinite variations and Kouten are a more advanced linear sequence of sixty-four moves in eight sets of eight. There are four kinds of techniques: Kihon Waza, basic techniques, Kaeshi Waza, counter techniques, Koryuu Waza, advanced techniques, and Henka Waza, variations. Kihon Waza consist of thirteen basic strikes and five kicks. Kaeshi Waza are designed to stop an opponent the moment they attack, taught using either Ju Kumite—soft freestyle sparring—or Shiai Kumite, sparring for real. Koryuu Waza consist of blows, elbow strikes, kicks, and throws designed for maximum efficiency with minimal effort. Most of the Hakke techniques are Koryuu Waza finger strikes combined with open palm strikes because a master of the Gentle Fist can channel chakra through their fingertips or palms to block multiple tenketsu simultaneously.

Hotaru and Neji are both masters of the martial art itself, but they’re not masters of the secret techniques derived from it. Yet. Hinata is still in the process of mastering the Henka Waza variations on the basics and Neji has to act as her sparring partner in a way that doesn’t challenge him at all. There’s a big difference between going through the motions of practice forms with a partner and sparring for real, like the difference between a shinai and a bokuto: one is a practice sword made of bamboo slats and plastic specifically designed not to injure the user or their opponent, the other is a wooden practice sword designed to mimic the weight of a real blade that can be used as a lethal weapon in the hands of a kenjutsu master.

Neji is supposed to act as the uke for Hinata, the one who takes her ukemi and lets himself be vulnerable to her strikes or lets her defend against his attacks. Hinata is the tori—the one who performs a successful technique—but she’s too timid to attack him all out, even in such a controlled environment. Neji is too proud to let her get through his guard and Hinata isn’t skilled enough to get through his guard unless he lets her. It’s a mismatch, not only because of the difference in their abilities but also because Neji resents her and his role in her training. This is not how you practice with an opponent you know is weaker than you. It’s attacking someone who can’t fight back under the pretense of sparring. Hinata isn’t learning from her sparring matches with him because he won’t allow her to improve.

Hotaru is always busy training with Tokuma or practicing her bukijutsu by herself during their sparring matches, so this is her first time watching their cousin train with her sister. Neji has always had annoyingly perfect form, his coiled strength rooted in every sinuous facet of his body. Hotaru inhales sharply through her nose and swallows hard, her breath hitching softly in her throat as the palpable undercurrent of his hatred fulminates in the negative space that surrounds him. It makes her feel guilty deep in the marrow, because she thinks he’s beautiful even though she knows he’s broken. _Neji-niisan is sabotaging her training_ , she thinks as Hinata strikes at him with hesitant palms and he blocks her with his forearms _. Otousama must see that, so why isn’t he doing something about it?_

Neji huffs and slips out of his fighting stance. Hinata flinches almost imperceptibly at the derisive noise he makes. Neji sighs and puts his hands on his hips, his fingers curled loosely into fists so his knuckles snarl at the juncture of his hipbones.

Hinata can see her father and grandfather watching them in her periphery and their scrutiny makes her feel even more anxious than being the focus of her cousin’s impotent rage always does. “Neji-niisan?” she mumbles.

Neji sneaks a glance at Hotaru in his periphery. It’s the first time she’s ever watched him train up close instead of staring at him through a wall and he wants to show her what he’s capable of, what he’s learned from years of observing her. “Hiashi-sama,” he says, “her sparring partner doesn’t have to be me. Please let me do my own training.”

“No,” Hiashi says imperiously, “not yet. Continue.”

Hinata makes a futile attempt to shrug the anxiety out of her shoulders and moves into a fighting stance with one palm out and her other hand clenched into a fist. “L-Let’s keep going,” she stutters. “Please. Continue, Neji-niisan.”

Neji gnashes his teeth and sighs with enough force to slump his shoulders. “Understood,” he says flatly and shifts into a fighting stance to mirror her vertical palm.

Hinata unclenches her fist and charges at him with a loud battle cry. Neji smacks her hand away hard enough to make her stumble backward while he steps forward with his right foot—he’s right-handed, and he’s not holding back anymore. Hinata shuts her eyes and winces at the resonant sting rooted in the heel of her palm and radiating through her fingers.

Neji smirks at the sight of fear in her eyes. It brings him back to his first time watching her train with his uncle, that fateful afternoon when Hiashi activated the curse seal and made him watch helplessly as his father writhed on the floor in agony. Neji thought his shy and kind cousin was cute until that day, but those warm feelings have since withered and faded into something ugly and twisted. _See that you never forget your destiny_ , his uncle had told him. Neji hasn’t forgotten. How could he, with the same mark that killed his father branded on his forehead? “What’s wrong, Hinata-sama?” he asks her with a harsh edge serrating his voice. “This isn’t child’s play now.”

Hinata flinches before she charges at him again with downward palm strikes that he avoids effortlessly before he counterattacks with four push hands that smash her guard into smithereens and hits her with two collapsing palm strikes that slam into her chest and chin so hard she stumbles again.

“That was _nothing_ ,” Neji sneers and smacks her with downward palm strikes and spiraling palms that Hinata struggles to block with her forearms before he uses two push hands to send her flying onto her back and shouts, “and still you expect to fulfill your destiny as a member of the main household?”

Hotaru watches in horror as her cousin activates his Byakugan and shrieks, “ _No!_ ”

Hiashi grabs his nephew by the wrist before he can attack her sister and flips him onto his back. Neji wheezes on impact as his body collides with the polished oak wood, the floor crashing into the back of his skull and the jut of his elbows. Hinata scrambles to her feet and clenches her hands into fists to stop them from shaking as her father narrows his eyes at Neji and forms the seal of confrontation with one hand to activate the curse mark. Neji screams and tangles his fingers in his hair, writhing and clawing at the bandages on his forehead as the cacophonous sounds of anguish spill out of his mouth.

Hotaru activates her Byakugan and Hiashi doesn’t even have time to blink in shock as four clones grab him and the flow of his chakra ebbs. No one has blindsided him and blocked his tenketsu since he was a teenager. Hotaru is still in his field of vision, but he didn’t even see her form the clone seal. Worse, her clones are corporeal bunshin formed using the kind of kinjutsu he explicitly ordered Anko not to teach her. Hiashi turns and looks at his daughter over his shoulder and frowns at her in warning. “That was a forbidden jutsu,” he says as her shadow clones vanish in fumes of white fizzling smoke, “I specifically told you not to study—”

“Our curse mark jutsu should be forbidden,” Hotaru retorts. “I won’t let you use it against Neji-niisan or anyone else.”

Hiroki is just as shocked, because he didn’t see Hotaru form the clone seal either and he wasn’t preoccupied with protecting anyone. What frightening potential his granddaughter has. “Hotaru,” he says, “you attacked the head of the clan. That cannot go unpunished.”

Neji is still on the floor, staring at her with his nostrils flaring and his jaw clenched tight. Hotaru has never felt so conflicted in her life. Neji wanted to hurt Hinata both physically and mentally—otherwise he wouldn’t be sabotaging her training and consequently fanning the flames of her abysmally low self-esteem. Maybe he even wanted to kill her. Hotaru still doesn’t regret going against her father and their grandfather to protect him, because the people who belong to the branch house can’t protect themselves.

Hiroki watches Hanabi flee back down the hall to the courtyard and stares down his nose at Hotaru. “I’ll give you a choice,” he tells her, “either you endure me amplifying your chakra for three minutes or you activate the curse seal yourself.”

Byakugan users can either block tenketsu in order to stop chakra flow or apply just enough pressure to amplify it—and both are potentially fatal. There are chakra tubes in every cell and they act like connective tissue in the body. Rupturing those microscopic tubes lets chakra leak out into the surrounding tissue and damage it, forcing sensory neurons to fire and overloading the peripheral nervous system until all of the nociceptors in the body respond by telegraphing an excruciating amount of pain.

Hiroki believes the Hyuuga way of ruling through absolute fear is the only way. Hizashi died by his hand and he believes that sacrificing his younger son to protect the secrets of the Byakugan was unequivocally the right choice, because it was for the sake of the clan. Hotaru doesn’t remember when she began to question everything the elders have taught her, even in hindsight.

Was it after she used her Byakugan to watch the curse sealing ceremony on the night of her third birthday? Or after she picked the bones out of the ashes that had been her mother, the remnants of the woman who brought her and her sisters into the world?

Was it after she watched Ageha die, and her own powerlessness sank its talons into her like a bird of prey? Or after she found the body of her best friend with the Sharingan that Izumi had been so proud of awakening taken from her by the monster who orchestrated the Uchiha massacre from the shadows?

Was it after she caught her widowed granduncle Haboshi attempting to rape her thirteen-year-old third cousins by threatening to activate their curse seals? Or after the other elders acted like he did nothing wrong because Kinu and Saya are branch house, and Haboshi is part of the main household?

Maybe the resonance of those events accumulated to irrevocably alter her perspective on fate and family, prodigals and privilege, duty and destiny. Hotaru has a hypothesis that enrolling at the Academy at such a young age might have also been a contributing factor in cultivating her ability to see beyond her clan and critically think over their oppressive hierarchy. Being able to see things differently instead of blindly swallowing centuries of tradition has made her a heretic in the eyes of the elders. Some nights she wonders if they might be pressuring her father to seal her so they can groom Hanabi into a figurehead they can actually control. Other nights, in her darkest hours, she thinks that Itachi might have been onto something when he slaughtered his entire clan.

Hotaru knows what her grandfather wants from her and she looks him in the eyes, unflinching.

“I know you think sacrificing the people who belong to the branch house is what the future head of the clan should do,” she says, “but you’re wrong. Those sacrifices are only worth something if the people who belong to the main household deserve the loyalty of the branch families. I won’t rule with fear. I’m going to protect every member of this family with my life, no matter their status or supposed worth. That’s my Will of Fire. If you need to hurt someone,” she flickers to stand in front of her grandfather and holds her arms out to him because he can press her tenketsu even though her weighted training bandages, “hurt me. I can take it.”

Hiroki grabs her wrist and stabs his chakra point needle into the bend of her elbow. Hotaru bites her lip and swallows around the screams that get caught in her throat as her pulse hammers like cudgels until she can’t hear anything beyond the hideous beat of her heart. Hinata gulps as her sister falls to her knees with a hollow thud. Hotaru shrieks until her voice shatters into shreds of breathless sounds, squeezing her eyelids shut and externalizing the paroxysms of pure agony mangling her from the inside out. Hiashi curls his hands into fists to stop himself from interfering because his daughter needs to learn this lesson: the price of power and peace is pain. Hotaru splutters and chokes on her own air as phosphenes flash bright and harsh behind her closed eyelids.

Three minutes under torture feels endless, almost. When the pain abruptly stops, Hotaru is drooling on the polished oak floor. Tears are stinging the corners of her eyes and clumping her eyelashes.

It feels like her body isn’t hers anymore. Hotaru swallows hard and stares at her fingertips, slowly furling and unfurling them until the cognitive dissonance fades away. _This is how Neji-niisan always feels_ , she thinks, _like he doesn’t belong to himself_.

 _This is what being cursed feels like_.

* * *

Hotaru is shocked when her father lifts her up and holds her in the cage of his arms like some precious thing. It’s the first time he’s touched her outside of their sparring matches since the day her Gentle Fist training began seven years ago. Hiashi was never affectionate with her or her sisters even before their mother died, but that doesn’t mean he feels no affection for them. Being a shinobi means killing your emotions in order to fulfill your duties to your village, to your family, to your country. Hiashi was never taught how to express his feelings in a healthy way, but he wants to believe in a better way for the Hyuuga than ruling with absolute fear. When he looks at Neji, he sees his weakness staring back at him; and that spirals into a sharp breathless sensation, like a gutwrenching sucker punch. Or visceral pangs of guilt.

When he looks at Hotaru, he sees a brighter future for their clan—a future he wishes his brother could have lived to see.

Hotaru clutches her fingers around a fistful of his haori and looks at him with her pale eyes wide. It takes him a few seconds to realize that she doesn’t want him to leave Hiroki alone in the dojo with Neji and Hinata. Hiashi sighs and looks down at his nephew, who is standing with his hands clenched into fists at his sides and staring at Hotaru with an unfathomable look on his face.

“Neji,” he says, “you will not train with Hinata until you learn to swallow your pride and teach her the way my brother once taught you. Now go.”

Hotaru shuts her eyes and slumps back against his shoulder as Hiashi carries her upstairs to her room, Hinata following a few steps behind them.

“I still don’t approve of you using forbidden jutsu,” Hiashi tells her sharply, “but I’m proud that you’re able to master such advanced techniques at your age. I’m disappointed that you felt the need to use them against me.”

Hotaru tries to shrug and bites the inside of her cheek hard in a futile attempt to dull the stabbing pain saturating her shoulder muscles. “Our curse mark jutsu should be forbidden,” she echoes, “we should protect each other because we’re family, not because of some curse seal or some cruel fate.”

 _It’s not for you as a member of the main household that I do this_ , Hizashi had said. _I want to die to protect you as your brother, because doing that is the first time I have the freedom to choose. I want to disobey the Hyuuga destiny. I want to choose my own destiny, that’s all_.

Neji is his only son, but Hotaru is the one who inherited his Will of Fire—the will to change the Hyuuga. If his twin brother was born first, he would have done what his daughter is doing now. This is the future Hizashi died for: a future where disobedience can make a difference, a future where the heir to the main household willfully protected her cousin who belongs to the branch house, a future where they all potentially have the freedom to choose their own destiny.

“Hinata,” Hiashi says, “stay with your sister. I’ll send for Tokuma once he returns from guard duty, but until then…Hotaru shouldn’t be alone.”

Hinata nods, a quick bobble of her head. There are always at least four Hyuuga on guard duty, stationed in shifts at the watchtowers built into the wall surrounding the village. Hotaru being promoted to chuunin gave Tokuma more freedom to accept missions beyond his duty as her protector, and he was promoted to tokubetsu jounin at seventeen—the youngest Hyuuga to become a jounin since Hiashi and Hizashi. Most of their main house cousins are genin or chuunin. Iroha and Natsu are jounin, but they both have something to prove because their father is branch house. “Oneesama,” she mumbles as Hotaru flops her head back onto her pillow and wheezes helplessly.

Hotaru sucks in a sharp breath and stares at Hinata in her periphery because she feels too worn out to turn and look at her twin. Hinata fails in visible ways: she doesn’t master the Gentle Fist as fast as her sisters or their cousin the genius, she doesn’t possess the killer instinct a shinobi needs to survive, and she’s too kind for her own good. Hotaru fails in other ways: she can’t style her hair without making a mess of it or put on a kimono by herself without looking sloppy, she can’t sing or play any musical instruments or arrange flowers without embarrassing herself, and she’s all or nothing about everything she does.

When she can’t do something on the first try, she gets scared that her genius was a lie and she can’t do anything right. There’s a word for that fear—impostorism—but naming the feeling doesn’t help her conquer it. Hotaru would’ve plummeted into the void between perfectionism and procrastination a long time ago if she wasn’t the future head of the Hyuuga clan.

Hotaru and Hinata aren’t identical by any stretch of the imagination, but they both know failure isn’t permanent. Neji hasn’t learned that lesson yet because he thinks geniuses are incapable of failing. Hotaru knows better. “Your precision and form are excellent,” she says. “You probably would’ve mastered the Koryuu Waza by now if Neji-niisan didn’t suck at being your sparring partner. Your problem isn’t technical, it’s mental.”

Hinata flushes at the praise and stares down at her hands as she resists the urge to quibble with her fingers. “W-What do you mean?” she wants to know.

“You’ve seen how much damage the Gentle Fist can do,” Hotaru clarifies. “You think inflicting this kind of pain on someone is terrifying,” she flails one hand obliquely at herself and winces as her muscles twinge in protest before she asks, “am I wrong?”

Hinata swallows around the lump in her throat. “No,” she whispers.

“Okay,” Hotaru says and scrunches up her whole face in pain because her infernal uterus is still trying to eat itself on top of everything. “I know a way for you to conquer that fear.”

“How?” Hinata asks, her breath shallow and chest going tight with anticipation.

“Just imagine your opponent is going to kill me,” Hotaru says, “or Hanabi, or Naruto-kun, but he has to get through you first. If you can’t fight for yourself, fight for someone you love—someone you think is worth killing for or dying to protect. When I fight Otousama, I tell myself that he’s trying to attack you. It’s not hard to imagine, since he hurts you every time he opens his mouth.”

Hinata tangles her fingers together in her lap and hunches her shoulders until they gnarl anxiously. “Otousama only does that because I l-look the most l-like our mother,” she mumbles, “h-he worries about us dying like she—”

“You shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells around him,” Hotaru retorts. “Okaasama wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Their father is an elite shinobi, but he’s not a good parent. Hiashi is more afraid for Hinata than either of her sisters, and he always says the wrong things to her because of that. When he tried to force her to drop out of the Academy, she stood up to him for the first time in her life and told him that she wants to be a shinobi even though he doesn’t think she has the disposition for it. Hiashi has been even more strict with her and her training since then, and she can tell he wishes she were more like her sister. Maybe someday he’ll realize that pitting them against each other isn’t going to make her stronger, because Naruto made her want to stop comparing herself to her twin and believe that she’s good enough just the way she is.

Hinata untangles her fingers and smiles. _Oneesama is Oneesama_ , she thinks, _and I’m me. We’re stronger together_. “H-How does it feel?” she asks.

“What,” Hotaru answers her question with a question, “killing?”

Hinata nods and watches her sister furl and unfurl her fingertips as the corners of her lips wilt into a frown.

“I don’t feel anything,” Hotaru informs her. “We’re shinobi, not mercenaries or murderers. There are reconnaissance teams who investigate assassination contracts before those missions can be approved and assigned by the office of the Hokage. Anko-sensei and I always do recon for months to push the paperwork through before our squad terminates our targets. I don’t blindly trust our system of government, but at least our village doesn’t sanction indiscriminate killing like Kirigakure does.”

Hinata nods again, a slow descent of her chin. “Most of our missions are supplementary to official law enforcement agencies,” she says. “We’re paramilitary, but shinobi are still beholden to our Daimyo.”

“Your grades are good,” Hotaru says. “Otousama should be proud.”

Hinata fidgets with her fingers and makes a futile attempt to shrug the hunch out of her shoulders. “I’m n-not first in my class like you were,” she mumbles.

Hotaru huffs. Hinata is third out of the thirty students in her class overall, but their father never lets her forget that someone from a civilian family—a girl named Haruno Sakura—always scores higher than she does on written exams. “I was only first in my class because I spend all my time studying and training,” she says, “you actually have a life outside of Hyuuga.”

Hinata fidgets with her fingers again. Hotaru has a lot of responsibilities as the future head of the clan, so her life has been all about duty since they were born. Hinata knows her sister doesn’t resent her, but that soft hint of wistfulness in her voice is still heartbreaking. “Ino-chan gave me seeds for a new variety of sunflower called Helianthus radula,” she says and smiles at the prospect of adding to her garden, “they bloom in the fall and their petals are purple. I’m thinking of cultivating a new field in the clan forest, because Ino-chan said this kind of sunflower grows best out in the open.”

Yamanaka Ino, the precocious seven-year-old Yamanaka heiress, took one look at Hinata the morning after Sakura ended their friendship over Uchiha Sasuke and proclaimed that Hinata was her new best friend because unlike the other girls in their class, she didn’t have a crush on “Sasuke-kun.” It’s been almost three years since then, and those shallow roots are paradoxically flourishing in common ground. Hinata and Ino are polar opposites in terms of personality, but they’re not rivals like Sakura and Ino are. There’s nothing adversarial or competitive spoiling their friendship since they don’t have the same taste in boys, or clothes, or food.

Hotaru squirms onto her side and stares at her sister. “Why don’t you invite her over?” she asks. “I want to meet her.”

“You’ve met Ino-chan before,” Hinata says.

Hotaru muffles a yawn in the fabric of her pillowcase. There’s a crucial difference between their father introducing her to Ino, the future head of the Yamanaka clan, and Hinata introducing her to Ino, her best friend. “I want to meet her outside tea ceremonies and weddings and flower viewings and festivals and birthday parties where our families expect us all to behave like proper heirs and heiresses who represent our clans,” she clarifies. “Just don’t invite her over for dinner on Friday. I don’t want her to pick a fight with Karin-chan over Sasuke-san.”

“Karin-chan likes Sasuke-san too?” Hinata asks.

Sasuke glowers at her whenever she visits the Uchiha memorial with a red spider lily for Izumi. It feels like he thinks she needs his permission to mourn her best friend. Hotaru knows he’s in pain, but she has no patience for someone who can’t see through anything. “Un,” she says. “I don’t understand the appeal.”

“Neither do I.” Hinata glances at the stack of books on the floor next to her sister and smiles again. There are stacks of post-it notes sticking out from in between the pages meticulously. Hinata knows her twin must have a color-coded system to explain the flaps of hot pink, green, blue, orange, pale yellow and dark purple. “Maybe living with Neji-niisan has made us immune to brooding dark-haired geniuses,” she murmurs.

Hotaru sighs. _Maybe you’re immune_ , she thinks, _but I’m not_.

* * *

Neji has lived at the main house ever since his uncle took him under his wing and marked him with the caged bird curse seal that sets him apart from the Hyuuga who belong to the main household. Although seventeen members of the Hyuuga clan are main house, only twelve of them actually live in the family mansion: Hotaru, Hinata, Hanabi, Hiashi, Hiroki, Honoka, Haboshi, Hatori, Iroha, Kou, Natsu, and Akari. There are twelve detached houses scattered around the Hyuuga compound, rooted in the foliage of the forest that grows wild behind the walls of the Hyuuga district. It contains two dozen buildings in total including the family shrines to the Crumbling Prince and Watatsumi, the main house dojo, the archery range, the branch house dojo, storage buildings and guesthouses. Kuzuebiko, the Crumbling Prince, is a god of agriculture, knowledge, and wisdom. Although he cannot walk, he sees everything in the empire. Watatsumi is the dragon god, a god of the sea and a son of Izanami and Izanagi. According to the family tree, the first head of the Hyuuga clan was descended from Watasumi through his daughter Otohime and Hohodemi, her husband, son of Ninigi-no-Mikoto, grandson of Amaterasu, and Konohanasakuya-hime, daughter of the mountain god Yamatsumi. Ugayafukiaezu-no-Mikoto, their son, and Tamayori-hime, another daughter of the dragon god and his aunt, were married and their son became the first emperor of the world. Hyuuga was originally a cadet branch of the imperial clan of Fire Country when it was called the Ancestral Country and Taiyou, the first head of the clan, was actually the younger twin brother of Otsutsuki Tenji, the emperor who once united what has become the world of fractured nations that includes the Five Great Shinobi Countries.

Those who do not become shinobi manage the plum orchard and plots of farmland cultivated so the clan doesn’t have to rely too much on food sources from outside the village. Umeshu made using the fruit harvested from the Hyuuga orchard is rare and expensive, luxury only nobles can afford. There are three varieties made every year: plum wine made with sake, brandy, or shochu. Umeboshi, plum juice, plum vinegar, plum syrup, and candied plums extracted from the jars of liqueur are stockpiled and sold to stores in the village or used as offerings along with the aged plum wine.

Neji always gets stuck with bamboo skewers, removing the vestigial stems from the ripe green fruit until he can’t see or think straight.

Midori is away on covert missions for months at a time because her ANBU squad was formed to gather intel on Fire Country politics by living as kusa in the provinces outside the village, so the small detached house that belongs to her is full of books and magazines, specifically romance novels and weekly magazines that serialize chapters of shoujo manga. Neji meditates in that house when his mother is gone and he reads her tankobon volumes when he can’t focus. Midori is secretly an otaku, but he’s not ashamed of her obsession with cheesy love stories. When he asked her why she reads such vapid comics, she told him that his father loved shoujo manga almost as much as Hizashi loved his family. There’s an iei of Hizashi enshrined in the only room that isn’t brimming with books. Neji feels safest in that house whether his mother is home or not, surrounded by her library and insulated from the rest of the Hyuuga clan by the memory of his father.

Unfortunately, he can’t focus on meditating or reading manga because he can’t stop thinking about his cousin. Hotaru had kept her word, kept the promise she didn’t even technically make to him.

 _I’m going to protect them all with my own hands, even from each other. Hit me. I can take it_.

Neji gnashes his teeth and shuts the issue of _Sho-Comi_  in his hands with a flick of his wrist. It’s almost midnight, but he’s too wired to sleep and he can’t get her out of his head. Just being in proximity to her makes him lose focus.

_I won’t rule with fear. If you need to hurt someone, hurt me. I can take it._

If she doesn’t stop doing reckless things like saying the curse mark should be forbidden in front of her father and protecting him from their grandfather to prove how much she means that, he might actually start to believe in her.

Neji sneaks back inside the main house sometime after midnight and stops in front of the door to the bedroom in the southeast corner of the mansion. Hotaru is asleep—he can see the pulse of her heart thrumming softly with his Byakugan and he frowns at the sight of her body still mangled on a cellular level. Neji had to master the Healing Palm technique because he was chosen to protect Hinata, so his eyes can see the horrifying extent of the injuries she endured to protect him. Tokuma repaired her chakra tubes, but he didn’t heal all of the internal damage their grandfather inflicted on the soft tissue surrounded by her chakra pathways. Maybe he depleted his chakra reserves before he could heal her completely. Or their grandfather told him not to fix all the damage he caused, to let her heal on her own in order to teach her a lesson.

 _There are people in the main house who think she’s too dangerous to rule_ , Neji thinks ruefully, _too powerful to properly control. It seems our grandfather is one of them_.

Neji tells himself that he hates her, but the way he feels seeing the aftermath of the punishment she took in order to keep the promise she made to him defies all logic and lacks a proper lexicon. It makes his hands coil and uncoil into fists at his sides, his mouth gone dry and his heart somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. Neji is taut with that unfathomable emotion, his duty to protect the future head of the clan almost outweighing the heavy darkness he keeps locked up inside him.

Hotaru is overwhelmingly devoid of darkness. It makes his ugly heart more obvious to him whenever he looks at her—and he looks at her often.

* * *

Hotaru gets her ears pierced the next day.

When the Hokage summons her to his office and deploys her on a B-rank reconnaissance mission to Sound Country with Anko-sensei and an Aburame named Muta, her earlobes are studded with a pair of tiny sterling silver sunflowers.

It becomes a ritual of hers, later. Hotaru gets a new piercing every time she needs to remind herself that her body is hers. Until her ears are studded with flowers, with metallic spikes, with the knowledge that not even Hyuuga can take herself from her.


	5. Geranium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s never specified what terminal illness Kimimaro has, so I’m saying he has pulmonary fibrosis. Which is a disease that would be difficult to diagnose if someone had such a unique skeletal system, and definitely something that would prevent Orochimaru from using him as a vessel. It’s also incurable, but medical ninjutsu can potentially cure anything. Kimimaro also canonically weighs 49.8 kilograms—approximately 109 pounds—in Part I. However, I think he would actually weigh more because his skeleton is dense af and he has extra layers of bone under his skin. 90.7 kilograms is approximately 200 pounds. Kimimaro is 166.1 centimeters tall in Part I, but he’s two years younger here so he’s shorter.

**Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.**  
**Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.**  
**I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.**  
**I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down**  
**into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,**  
**how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,**  
**which is what I have been doing all day.**  
**Tell me, what else should I have done?**  
**Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?**  
**Tell me, what is it you plan to do**  
**with your one wild and precious life?**

Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”

* * *

_Parhelion_  
**Part I** :  
Aphelion  
**Chapter 5** :  
Geranium

* * *

_Geraniums mean either true friendship, gentility, or stupidity in Japanese flower language. These flowers have three meanings in Western flower language: trust, respect, or good breeding. Yellow Geraniums signify unexpected encounters_.

* * *

**61 NSE**

* * *

Sound Country is a small nation that shares a northern border with the Unkai, an eastern border with Steam Country, a western border with Forest Country, and a southern border with Fire Country. It was known as Rice Field Country until approximately a decade ago, since the farmers in that country had a monopoly on growing and exporting semiaquatic and deepwater rice before the new age of shinobi began. After the hidden village system took root in Konoha and took over the shinobi world, Rice Field Country became a throwback to the Warring States Era. Its landscape of flooded rice paddies was shredded into battlefields and mass graves by seven ninja clans with bad blood between them: the Fuuma clan, the Hannya clan, the Yatsukahagi clan, the Shiin clan, the Hagoromo clan, the Kaguya clan, and the Tenpin clan. Most of those feuding clans were massacred along with the farmers and villagers who inevitably got caught in the crossfire. Fuuma Kazama relocated to Konoha before Hotaru was born and brought his secret weapons manufacturing techniques with him. After the downfall of the Uchiha clan, his wife became the head of the Konoha Military Police Force. Kinryuu, the former head of the Kaguya, wiped his clan off the map in a failed attempt to invade and destroy Kirigakure because he wanted to test the strength of the Shikotsumyaku against the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen of the Mist.

Hotaru is morbidly fascinated by the Shikotsumyaku: the ability to manipulate the skeletal frame to grow and regrow bones and fight with dense bone armor underneath the skin. Their bone sword dances are supposedly the ultimate taijutsu-based fighting style. Maybe even superior to the Gentle Fist. Since the day she read about the kekkei genkai of the Kaguya clan in the Konoha archives, she wanted to fight a master of the Shikotsumyaku to see if her Gentle Fist can penetrate bone armor.

“Why do you care about some bloodthirsty clan that went extinct five years ago?” Anko wants to know.

Hotaru cocks her head slantwise and shrugs. “Orochimaru would care,” she points out.

Anko huffs. “I’m sure he would,” she retorts, “but that doesn’t mean we should waste our time sneaking around the Kaguya ruins. Orochimaru,” she gnashes her teeth the way she always does before she bites down around his name and spits it out without using an honorific like _sensei_ or _sama_ and says, “wouldn’t set up shop in such an obvious place.”

Hotaru sighs. “Maybe he would because he knows you think he wouldn’t,” she says.

Anko twirls a senbon in between her fingers and eyes a tea house with a sign that says _new dessert menu featuring kuri dango!! _hanging from the front window. “Or,” she says, “he wouldn’t because he knows someone might actually think he would because he knows I think he wouldn’t.”

Hotaru rolls her eyes at that. Muta is elsewhere waiting for intel from his shoukaichuu, grubs that gather information from the earth itself. Hotaru couldn’t wheedle the eighteen-year-old Aburame into elaborating on exactly how those insects work, much to her disappointment. Most ninja don’t share information about their jutsu, which is great for operational security and keeping techniques secret from other shinobi clans but terrible for someone with insatiable curiosity. “I’ll give you a Hiraishin kunai, stay in contact over the radio, and teleport back at the first sign of trouble,” she promises, “my range is twenty-five kilometers per jump now. Please?”

Anko stares her down, like a snake eyeballing a bird of prey. When the Hokage assigned her a genin team, she accepted the assignment like the kickass elite shinobi that she is and bitched about the assignment to Kurenai and Iroha over dinner that night like a boss. Anko isn’t the nurturing type and educating bratty greenhorns seemed like a waste of time she could’ve spent eating dango or perfecting the poison she plans to use on that bastard Orochimaru after she tracks him down.

Unfortunately, her team consisted of genin from three prominent clans: the Hyuuga heiress, an Uchiha, and a Yamanaka. Anko couldn’t send them back to the Academy without pissing off three powerful clans, especially after seeing the extent of their abilities. Izumi had reflected her genjutsu back on her, Ageha immobilized her with his Mind Transfer technique, and Hotaru blocked sixty-four of her tenketsu. Anko had never been so humiliated by anyone but Orochimaru before. If they hadn’t all passed out from the airborne toxin she threw at them, she would’ve been even more impressed.

Hotaru learned everything Anko had to teach her in ten months, all while training in the Gentle Fist and mastering the Hiraishin with help from Kakashi. Anko recommended her for the chuunin exams because she kind of wanted to see Hotaru get her ass kicked, but that backfired when a genin from Iwagakure broke one of her arms.

Anko had wanted to kill the little shit who hurt her student, her student who grew on her like a fungus and became someone precious to her. It’s been almost three years since then, and Hotaru has only gotten stronger. Anko knows she’s got some bet going with her father about getting promoted to jounin in the next two years, something about her sisters and cousins being able to marry for love instead of doing the old-fashioned arranged marriage thing. Hotaru can be self-sacrificing, but she’s not stupid. Anko knows her strengths and weaknesses better than pretty much anyone.

Hotaru looks her dead in the eyes and stares back without flinching as she extracts her wallet from the pocket of her flak jacket. “I’ll treat you to dango,” she offers. Hotaru knows _her_ strengths and weaknesses, too.

“Okay,” Anko tells her, “you go explore for half an hour. Any longer and I’ll set your new books on fire.”

Hotaru touches the scroll in her pocket where she sealed the books she bought on their way to the village they’re scouting while they searched for signs of Orochimaru infiltrating the area. “Rude,” she retorts before she turns on her heels and walks away.

Anko sticks her tongue out, because she knows Hotaru can see her even though she’s facing the opposite direction.

* * *

Kaguya was once one of the Seshuu Shinnouke—the four cadet branches of the imperial Otsutsuki clan. Emperor Kazutaka, the last imperial ruler of the world, and most of his court were slaughtered by the Kaguya five hundred years ago. Daimyo from other noble clans decentralized the system of government into nations in the aftermath. Senju, Hyuuga, and Uchiha were the other three cadet branches and Hyuuga is the only imperial offshoot that can still technically call itself a clan. There’s no emperor now, even as a figurehead. Senju Tsunade is the closest thing Fire Country has to a princess. Hotaru could technically be considered a princess too, based on her lineage alone.

Most of that isn’t public knowledge, and Hotaru only knows what she learned from doing research in the archives. Academy textbooks are festooned with stories paraphrased from sanitized historical documents, not factual information. Nothing in the shinobi world can be taken at face value. Kakashi told her to look underneath the underneath, to ask herself who benefits from framing the facts in certain ways—and being the future head of the Hyuuga clan taught her that lesson over and over again.

Orochimaru would benefit from the rest of the world thinking the seven ninja clans of Sound Country are extinct, if the survivors were among his loyal followers. _Or_ , she thinks, _among his victims_.

When she activates her Byakugan, she can see a barrier in the stonework of the crumbling walls that surround the Kaguya ruins. It’s subtle, intricate fuuinjutsu only someone with a doujutsu like the Byakugan or the Kagura Shingan or the Sharingan could detect. Hotaru debates the risk of triggering it before she errs on the side of curiosity and sets it off instead of bypassing it using a Barrier Pass technique.

There are underground dungeons beneath her feet, cages made of tungsten-steel alloys strong enough to withstand the bone swords of the Kaguya. Hotaru scans the ruins in under a minute and is disappointed but unsurprised to find the library devoid of books and scrolls. There’s a secret passageway that slithers beyond the range of her Byakugan, twenty-five clicks towards Forest Country.

Hotaru is too focused on the remnants of the library to notice the pale boy staring at her in her periphery until he launches his distal phalanges at her and she activates her Byakugan as she flickers to catch them in midair, the speed of her Body Flicker generating nine afterimage clones who flip and fold and fade out as she cups her hands around the finger bones. Unfortunately, he forces her to drop the phalanges on the floor and backflip out of striking range of the bone sword he draws from his shoulder. Hotaru bites her thumb and uses the drops of blood that accumulate on the fleshy tip to summon her kodachi from the scroll holstered to her thigh.

 _Dance of the Camellia_ , she thinks and whirls to block the blade he made out of his deltoid tuberosity and ulna before she throws a flying kick at him that he dodges with almost inhuman flexibility, _one of the five sword dances of the Kaguya_.

“Who are you?” the pale boy asks her in between his brutal strikes.

Hotaru makes an indignant noise and drops the hilt of her kodachi on the floor because his sharp bone shattered her blade into two pieces. “That,” she snaps at him as she channels her chakra into her palms and blocks his sword with bursts of energy from her bare hands, “was a family heirloom!”

“I am Kimimaro,” he tells her. Kimimaro looks almost like a ghost: ashen hair parted with a zigzag like a fracture and twin locks tied in a traditional style with red silk cords, pale white skin punctuated by the vivid red clan markings around his eyes and on his forehead above his eyebrows, a mauve kimono shirt with a thin zipper over short black pants and pristine white bandages wrapped around his legs underneath his black sandals.

Hotaru grits her teeth and flickers out of range before she forms another seal. _Okay_ , she thinks, _I’m going to change tactics_.

It takes a dozen bunshin to dogpile him and the clones all vanish after he skewers them all with his Dance of the Larch—but that doesn’t matter because one of them got close enough to mark him with the Hiraishin jutsushiki. Hotaru teleports and moves at lightning speed to needle his forehead with two fingertips, her tenketsushin drilling through his skull to block the chakra point in between his eyebrows. If he’d used the Dance of the Willow instead, he would’ve sliced her arms to hell and back.

Hotaru glances down at her forearms and frowns at the gouges in the mesh armor she wears on top of her weighted training bandages on missions, thin lines of blood oozing from shallow cuts twisting like vines on her skin and staining the shreds of white fabric. “Crap,” she wheezes, “you actually got through my guard.”

“I cannot mold chakra or put my bone swords back inside my body.” Kimimaro stops trying to reabsorb his blades and glares at her with his venomously bright green eyes as she forms a seal with both hands to bind him with the bondage genjutsu Anko taught her. “What is this?” he wants to know.

Hotaru keeps her eyes on him as she crouches to pick up the pieces of her kodachi and seals them back into her scroll. “I’m Hotaru,” she informs him. “That was my chakra point needle. I blocked one of your tenketsu,” she pokes the space between her eyebrows to show him where, “specifically the drilling bamboo point.”

“You’re a Hyuuga,” Kimimaro deduces. Orochimaru covets the visual prowess of hereditary doujutsu—in particular the Sharingan and Byakugan—but he was never able to procure subjects with the Byakugan for his research despite his best efforts. Kimimaro doesn’t question his lord, but he understands why Orochimaru is reluctant to antagonize the Hyuuga now. If a little girl is capable of holding her own against him, the rest of her family must be formidable indeed.

Hotaru picks up the phalanges she dropped and puts the finger bones in the pocket of her flak jacket—spoils of war. “Un,” she deadpans, “was it the white eyes that gave me away?”

“You have control over my chakra network,” Kimimaro says.

Hotaru nods and taps her radio earpiece to turn the device on. “Anko-sensei,” she says as she blots the sweat on her forehead with her ruined sleeve and wipes the back of her neck. “There’s a Kaguya survivor. What are my orders?”

“Subdue and capture if possible using the sedative I made for you,” Anko tells her, “get your ass out of there if not. I don’t know how I’d explain to your father that I let you go off and get yourself killed in a fight with a master of the Shikotsumyaku.”

Hotaru uses blood from one of the cuts on her arms to summon the injector loaded with a glass vial of the aforementioned sedative from her scroll of supplies. _This feels almost too easy_ , she thinks and scrutinizes the pale boy as she approaches him with extreme caution. _I’m not skilled enough to survive the Dance of the Seedling Fern or Dance of the Clematis without using all my Hiraishin kunai to dodge and teleport out of range. Kimimaro was holding back_ , she lines the injector up with the vein pulsing in the side of his neck before she pricks him with the needle, _the question is: why? Maybe he’s not a master of all five sword dances—he doesn’t look too much older than me and I’m not a master of the Gentle Fist yet—or that buildup of scar tissue in his lungs is slowing him down_.

* * *

Two hours earlier, Kimimaro was summoned by Orochimaru to the underground hall of records in Otogakure. “Your new lungs are deteriorating faster than anticipated,” he says without preamble.

Kimimaro stares at the floor, ashamed. This failure is the reason Orochimaru hasn’t blessed him with the curse seal: because his disease means that he would not survive the process of becoming part of his lord, the embodiment of his will. “I’m sorry,” he rasps softly, his voice shriveled and small.

Orochimaru hums in agreement. “Konoha has your family medical histories,” he says, “and their medical corps are still the best in the shinobi world despite the prolonged absence of dear Tsunade-hime. If you still wish to offer yourself up to me as my vessel, you should let them do their utmost to heal you.”

There are so many reasons not to risk it. Konoha has a clan of mind readers, but Kimimaro doesn’t know enough about Orochimaru or Otogakure to reveal anything they could use against him. Maybe his lord has been feeding him misinformation since Kabuto proclaimed him terminally ill a year ago in preparation for such an infiltration. Plan A was to find Tsunade. When the Sound Four failed to locate the slug princess, Kabuto found a donor for a lung transplant to buy Kimimaro time. This is their last resort: to seek help from the village that spurned him and his ambition.

“I’ll have to alter or erase some of your memories,” Orochimaru says, “you understand.”

Kimimaro nods so fast he almost discombobulates himself. “I’ll do anything,” he says fervently.

“Yes,” Orochimaru sibilates and reaches out to stroke his cheek with his cold fingers, “I thought so.”

* * *

Yamashiro Aoba uncovers the connection Kimimaro has to Orochimaru immediately after Hotaru turns her captive over to his Intelligence Division squad, because the Sannin is too ingrained within his conscious and subconscious mind to erase without creating serious cognitive deficits.

Those clusters of redacted memories are irreversible, blurred or blacked out by a forbidden jutsu derived from a technique ANBU operatives use. Orochimaru was ANBU before he defected from Konoha—a member of a supposedly defunct subdivision called Root helmed by Shimura Danzou.

Hiruzen knows his former student can’t be saved, but he hopes the Kaguya child isn’t too far gone. Maybe time away from Orochimaru is all he needs.

* * *

Hotaru thought Kimimaro wouldn’t be her problem after she did the chain of custody thing and left him to the tender mercies of the interrogation squad. Then she wakes up a week later and sees a messenger hawk perched on the sill outside her window. Hotaru abruptly sits up and winces because her hands are still bruised from her fight with him, amaranthine contusions in bloom on the heels of her palms hidden under the fabric of her fingerless gloves.

Kimimaro—as a citizen of a foreign nation who turned himself over to Konohagakure—is officially in the custody of two ANBU, but ANBU operatives are busy so the chuunin who subdued him is his secondary guardian. It’s an A-rank escort mission, confined to the boundaries of the Leaf village. Hotaru has been assigned the same basic type of mission before: to escort civilian nobles while they visit the village. Those are typically C-rank or B-rank since the risks are negligible, but this mission has extenuating circumstances because Kimimaro is the foreign head of a presumed-extinct shinobi clan—a Kaguya murder weapon as opposed to a daimyo or a vassal. It’s also being paid for by the office of the Hokage, since Kimimaro has no money. Luckily the Sarutobi clan has deep pockets.

Hotaru tucks one hand in the pocket of her flak jacket and uses her Byakugan to read through her mission report in front of the Hokage, who stares at her from beneath the brim of his formal hat. “I’m going to be in charge of a sociopath who thinks Orochimaru is a god,” she deduces after she reads the subsection labeled _Tragic Backstory_ ostensibly by someone from the torture and interrogation squad with a dark sense of humor, “whose family kept him in a cage for pretty much his entire childhood. Until his probation ends in a year or the white snake comes to get him and tries to destroy our village, whichever happens first. I’m also off active duty for a year.”

“Yes,” Hiruzen says.

Hotaru cocks her head slantwise. _This seems like a terrible idea_ , she thinks, _but it means I might be able to fight Kimimaro-san in a controlled environment where he can’t attempt to murder me_. “Okay,” she ekes the _y_ sound out awkwardly before she memorizes the rest of the report and puts the folder back on top of his desk. “Please let Issei-dono know he can’t request me for escort duty at the upcoming chuunin exams and maybe reassign Iroha-niisan to Anko-sensei’s squad,” she says and bows to him with her hands folded in front of her. “Gokurousama deshita.”

Kaguya Kimimaro, born on June fifteenth, three years older than her—his first name is written using the kanji for “sovereign” and an archaism that means someone with shaved eyebrows. Which is a thing that the nobility did before the imperial court was massacred, ironically by the Kaguya clan. 164 centimeters tall, weighs 90.7 kilograms. Most of that weight must be dense bone tissue, because he looks too skinny. Kimimaro only knows how to read and write because Orochimaru taught him, probably because learning to write facilitates motor function that he wants his ideal vessel to have. There’s a crucial difference between holding writing implements and holding a sword.

Hotaru feels sick to her stomach thinking about Orochimaru getting his megalomaniacal hands on Kimimaro, age eight and a half, who thought his purpose in life was killing and with no preconceived notions that weren’t violent. It makes her grandfather torturing her by amplifying her chakra for three minutes seem all warm and fuzzy by comparison. _I guess this is the difference between a gilded cage and a tungsten-steel one_ , she thinks as she walks down the stairs into the bowels of the earth beneath the Hokage tower.

There are four subdivisions in the Intelligence Division: analysis, cryptology, archival, and torture and interrogation. Yamanaka Inoichi is head of analysis, Nara Mitoku is head of cryptology, Hyuuga Akari is head of archives, and Morino Ibiki is head of torture and interrogation. Intelligence Division shinobi rank anywhere from chuunin to tokubetsu jounin, and they wear gray uniforms with black overcoats instead of regulation blacks and green flak jackets. Hotaru stops by the halls of records to greet her aunt before she descends the fluorescently lit staircase to the torture and interrogation division where Kimimaro is being held.

When she activates her Byakugan, she can see Danzou fifteen clicks away in her periphery. There’s a Sharingan in his right eye socket and five pairs embedded in his right arm—including the eyes that once belonged to Izumi. Hotaru squeezes her eyelids shut and forces herself to look somewhere else. There’s no way for her to fight back against a man like him and win, not until she gets smarter and stronger. Much stronger.

Kimimaro is wearing cuffs on his wrists that restrict the flow of chakra, standard issue for probationary shinobi from other nations. Although he might not be staying in Konoha long enough to get taken off probation, if the subsection of her mission report labeled _Snake in the Grass_ was accurate. Kimimaro blinks at her as she opens the door to his interrogation room and shuts it behind her. “You,” he says in a monotone that oozes how thrilled he is to see her again. Or not.

Hotaru leans back against the door and tucks her hands in the pockets of her flak jacket. “You’re stuck with me for a year,” she informs him. “Until you serve your probation. You’ll be living at the Hyuuga compound, in the bedroom across the hall from mine. I see through walls, just so you know. You might be assigned D-rank missions, but probably not. I’m also one of two people who has the keys to your cuffs and I’ll unlock them for training or sparring if you promise not to kill me. You have an appointment with the head of the medical corps in two hours, so we’ll get lunch before that. What do you like to eat?”

Kimimaro shrugs. When he was kept in a cage, he subsisted on water and thin soup with a bowl of rice if his father remembered to feed him. Orochimaru is the kind of person who gets so absorbed in his research that he forgets to eat, so Kimimaro learned to cook for him and subsisted on leftover egg dishes. It didn’t matter if the food suited his tastes, as long as his lord was happy. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Have you ever tried ice cream?” Hotaru asks him.

Kimimaro shakes his head. Orochimaru hates anything cold. “No,” he tells her.

“Okay,” Hotaru says and opens the door again, “we’re trying every flavor and you’re going to pick a favorite. Let’s go.”


	6. Freesia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dry bones don’t conduct electricity because they consist of calcium phosphate and most solid state salts aren’t conductive because they lack free or valence electrons. However, collagen—the main component of the organic part of our bones and of cartilage—is conductive. It’s a bioelectret, a dipolar material that has a quasipermanent electric charge, and piezoelectricity is the word for an electric charge that accumulates in solid materials in response to applied stress. Basically, if she generated enough voltage to amp up that quasipermanent charge by causing him stress (e.g. the stress of electrocuting him with lightning-style ninjutsu), Hotaru could actually use Kimimaro’s own internal electric currents against him in a fight.

**There is more and more I tell no one,**  
**strangers nor loves.**  
**This slips into the heart**  
**without hurry, as if it had never been;**  
**and yet, among the trees, something has changed—**  
**something looks back from the trees,**  
**and knows me for who I am.**

Jane Hirshfield, “Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight”

* * *

_Parhelion_  
**Part I** :  
Aphelion  
**Chapter 6** :  
Freesia

* * *

_Freesias mean awkwardness or affection in Japanese flower language. These flowers can also symbolize childishness or immaturity. Freesias have another two meanings in Western flower language: friendship and trust_.

* * *

**62 NSE**

* * *

Kimimaro learns that he likes vanilla bean ice cream and dislikes hot fudge, he dislikes the cacophonous pop music from Lightning Country that Hotaru listens to, he likes cotton and silk but wool irritates his skin, he likes reading books, he likes watching glossy old black and white movies, he dislikes being forced to sit outside the dojo while Hotaru spars and trains with her father because he can’t see through walls and he wants to watch her, the girl who blocked his bone swords with her bare hands.

These are things he didn’t know about himself, before. Kimimaro has never had a “self” to speak of beyond Orochimaru, because his purpose in life is offering up his body to the only person who gives his life meaning.

But. Orochimaru isn’t the only person who gives his life meaning now. There is Juugo, who is waiting at the northern hideout for Kimimaro to return. There is Hanabi, who shares her castella with him even though she hates him because she doesn’t want to share her sisters with anyone. There is Neji, who reminds Kimimaro of himself, in another life. There is Hinata, who blushes and stutters but is always kind and strong in spite of her failures and weaknesses. There is Karin, who is fiercely intelligent and incongruously honest even though she always says the antithesis of what she means. There is Naruto, who should be tedious but instead fills him with absurd hopes for a future that he shouldn’t want to see.

There is Hotaru, who brings him books from the public library and spars with him during her precious hours of freedom from her training and studies. Hotaru, who bakes him flan on his birthday and sings off-key. Hotaru, who believes his bloodline limit has potential for healing people instead of hurting them. Hotaru, who makes Kimimaro think for himself.

“Hotaru.”

Kimimaro watches her as she twists her fluffy black hair up into a bun to keep it out of her eyes. It bothers her when he doesn’t address her with honorifics, even though she must know that he respects her by now after six months of probationary escort duty. Kimimaro has never met someone with abilities that are simultaneously equal and opposite to his before.

“What do you fight for?” he asks as she shifts her stance into a crouching form she hasn’t used against him before. “Why do you want to become stronger?”

Hotaru isn’t powerful enough to defeat him, but they’re close to being evenly matched and she has more chakra than he does. If she fought him without the suppression technique she uses or the twenty kilograms of weight she always wears on her lower extremities, her taijutsu might surpass his. Hyuuga-ryuu is fundamentally about learning where your limit is and surpassing that limit.

“I have people that I need to protect,” Hotaru informs him as she uses her Byakugan to observe the flow of the piezoelectricity inside his skeletal tissue and generates a Chidori with voltage that could stop his bone structures from healing autonomically. “Weakness is not an option for me. It never was.”

* * *

Neji watches Hotaru as much as Kimimaro does. Or more. Neji has mastered his Byakugan to the point that he can see her without actually looking at her, so his gaze is surreptitious enough that Hotaru herself hasn’t noticed. But. Kimimaro has noticed Neji staring at her, and he has noticed Hotaru staring back whenever she thinks her cousin isn’t looking. It’s strange to witness the mutual blindness of two people with so much visual prowess.

“Do you believe in destiny?” he asks in his aristocratic monotone one morning as dawn creeps over the horizon of the Hyuuga district.

Neji frowns at the pale boy sitting in seiza outside the dojo and leans back against the wall before he folds his arms tight across his chest. It’s six in the morning, too early for a philosophical discussion about determinism. “Do you?” he retorts.

 _There’s no purpose or meaning in life_ , Orochimaru had told him once, _but if you linger in this world long enough you might find something that makes life worth living_.

Kimimaro closes his eyes and listens to Hotaru in motion, the rhythm of her Gentle Fist resonant and immaculate. _This_ , he thinks, _is something more special than a small flower blooming in a forest. Maybe something more precious than the truth of the world that my lord seeks_. “I thought I did,” he says. “I’m not sure anymore.”

* * *

After she turns eleven, Hiashi teaches Hotaru a secret technique only the head of the Hyuuga clan knows—the Heavenly Spin. It takes her three months to learn the rotation and master the vortex so her chakra doesn’t spin out of control.

Neji graduates top of his class from the Academy that spring. Karin is recruited by ANBU instead of assigned to a genin team. Shiho is recruited by the cryptology squad and promoted to chuunin with a recommendation from the Hokage, bypassing the biannual exams. Their graduating class only consists of eleven genin, nine of whom are assigned to squads led by jounin. Neji is assigned to Team 3, along with his classmates Tenten and Rock Lee.

Tenten is one of the many children orphaned by the Kyuubi attack. Ayasugi, her father, and Mokume, her mother, were civilian weaponsmiths—they forged chakra-infused blades that adapted to the specific chakra signatures of their owners so they couldn’t be used against them. Tenten has no connections to any clan and no talent for nature transformation. What she lacks in noble bloodlines and ninjutsu skills, she makes up for with high exam scores and perfect aim. Tenten never misses her mark.

Rock Lee is the heir of the Lee clan, who invented a fighting style called the Intercepting Fist. Their family owns a dojo where they offer self-defense classes for civilians taught by his father, Pac Lee. Lee is the first member of his clan to become a shinobi, because his ancestors were warriors who couldn’t mold chakra. Which isn’t a choice his father approves of, because he wants Lee to inherit the family dojo and being a ninja isn’t conducive to that.

Pai, his mother, was also killed when the Kyuubi attacked the village. It had been her dream for her son to become a splendid ninja, even though he can’t use ninjutsu or genjutsu. Maito Gai, her brother, wants to make that dream come true.

Neji has seen Gai around the village—he always wears a bright green bodysuit and orange legwarmers, so he’s difficult to miss. Lee is the hotblooded idiot who started challenging him when they were in their fourth year at the Academy. Neji always wins against him, but still Lee calls them eternal rivals. Tenten seems competent and she’s not like the girls in their class who mooned over him with their shallow little crushes.

Most of those insipid girls didn’t pass the graduation exam because they didn’t take becoming a kunoichi seriously, and some of the boys weren’t any better. There are naïve little fools—like Naruto—who believe all shinobi are heroes like the Hokage or the Sannin who vanquish their enemies and become legends or perish on the battlefield in a blaze of glory, not soldiers who live and die for duty. Neji knows better.

Neji also could have graduated when he was seven or eight, but he chose not to because he wanted to keep an eye on his peers and their unique sets of skills in the only environment where budding ninja from other powerful clans are encouraged to show off their secret techniques. If he’s learned anything from watching Hotaru all these years, it’s that being ahead of the curve isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Neji has no desire to fulfill his destiny, even though he knows that he can’t avoid it forever—he prefers to supplement his training and studying with observing his classmates in order to make their strengths his own and learn all their weaknesses.

Gai knocks him on his ass ten seconds into randori in one of the quadrants at the third training ground. Tenten and Lee are likewise outmatched, but that doesn’t make Neji feel better. Gai is a jounin who’s successfully completed over seven hundred missions and a master of the Intercepting Fist so it’s not a shock that his sensei can dodge the Gentle Fist, but it stings that he can’t even get close enough to land one blow.

Neji spits out a few blades of grass that got in his mouth and struggles to get back on his feet while Lee yells something about not giving up because he has a dream. It’s ridiculous, but Neji has goals too. Becoming a tokubetsu jounin like his father and joining the ANBU black ops like his mother. Mastering the secret techniques of the main house. Becoming strong enough to surpass Hotaru and protect her, for a change.

“Yes! This is exactly how you should be,” Gai shouts as they sluggishly charge him, “even if all your energy is completely gone, you suck it up and you push through! Now come on and hit me with all your might!”

 _I can’t lose_ , he thinks as he throws a weak collapsing palm strike and gently boops his sensei on the nose, _I won’t lose_.

Gai squeezes all three of his students into a crushing hug. Neji groans internally while Lee bawls and Tenten squirms, an exercise in futility. It seems that being on this squad is going to fling him far out of his comfort zone. Still, they all passed his test. It must be his destiny to be on the same team with Tenten and Rock Lee. Fate has an odd sense of humor.

Neji slowly folds himself onto a gnarled root in the shade of its tree and sits there with his feet planted firmly on the ground, his sharp elbows perched on his knees. Patches of sweat have accumulated in his long dark hair and loose strands are sticking to the nape of his neck. Neji can feel the weight of the hitae-ate on his forehead, his curse mark obscured by the regalia of a full-fledged shinobi. Tenten is sitting next to him with her feet apart, her knees angled to knock together. Gai sits beside her on the thickest part of the root and splays his hands over his knees, while Lee sits closest to the trunk of the tree and imitates his posture.

“I’m so happy we all made it through that!” Lee wheezes ecstatically while Tenten gulps the water in her bamboo cup down to the last drops.

Neji shuts his eyes and inhales deeply through his nose. It feels strange not to meditate in the aftermath of his training, but he’s not comfortable enough with Gai or Tenten or Lee to sink into that state in front of them yet. “I wasn’t about to let myself fail after coming this far,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Y’know,” Tenten glances at Lee conspiratorially before she turns and looks over her shoulder at Neji and says, “we’re lucky we didn’t get that sensei everyone is always talking about.”

Lee frowns, the space between his thick eyebrows furrowing. “Tenten,” he says, “are you talking about the jounin who sent all three candidates before us back to the Academy?”

Tenten hums, a soft _mm-hmm_ ; it’s been going on for a few years now, and it’s common knowledge among the older Academy students. Kakashi, the Copy Ninja who lost his left eye during the Third Shinobi World War and was transplanted with a Sharingan that belonged to one of his ill-fated teammates, has consistently failed all of the genin assigned to his squads and sent them back to the Academy for further instruction.

Neji scoffs. “Luck doesn’t matter if you have real strength,” he says derisively. “Those candidates just weren’t good enough.”

“I don’t know,” Tenten says, “that’s not what I heard. I guess that jounin was talking about something more important for shinobi than strength.”

Lee scrunches up his whole face in confusion. “What did he mean by that?” he wonders. “Maybe a lethal one-hit technique or something?”

Neji furls and unfurls his hands into fists. “Who does he think he is, making up his own criteria?” he mutters.

Gai clenches his jaw and looks up at the girl who appears in front of them out of thin air, dressed in black training gear and mesh armor with the nimbus of her fluffy black hair falling over her pale shoulders.

“Kakashi-sensei is trying to teach his genin students the importance of teamwork,” Hotaru says flatly, “shinobi are typically deployed in squads of three or four. If shinobi can’t work together, we can’t do our jobs. When shinobi can’t do our jobs, people die. Sometimes they die anyway,” she surreptitiously slants her gaze to Neji before she murmurs, “and you can never be prepared for that no matter how much emotional training you’ve gone through. Kakashi-sensei just wants to do everything in his power to make sure that his students won’t get themselves—or each other—killed.”

Neji knows his cousin is speaking from personal experience. Hotaru and Kakashi are both the only surviving members of their genin teams—birds of a feather that flock together. Neji wants to break her wings, to lock her up inside his cage and never let her out.

“Kakashi has cheered up considerably since he started training with you,” Gai tells her with a wide grin that seems to sparkle even in the shade.

Hotaru can’t help smiling back at the self-proclaimed Noble Green Beast of Konoha. Neji doesn’t look thrilled to have Gai as his sensei, but he’s one of the best jounin in the village; everything he’s done has been about honoring the sacrifice his father Maito Dai made to save his life back when he was a genin. If anyone can show Neji that a world outside the Hyuuga clan exists and set him free, it’s someone like Gai. “Ibuki-obasan made lunch for your squad,” she says and puts the four-tiered bento on the ground at their feet before she folds her hands in front of her body and formally bows to him. “Please take good care of Neji-niisan from now on.”

“Of course we will!” Gai amps up his sparkle and gives her a thumbs up.

Lee beams at her. “Yosh!” he shouts and gives her two thumbs up.

“Thank you,” Hotaru says and lets herself look at Neji in her periphery for a few seconds too long before she forms the seal of confrontation with one hand and teleports away.

 _What she meant_ , Tenten deduces, _was “Please take good care of Neji for me.” Someone as emotionally constipated as he is probably has no idea she feels that way about him_. “So,” she says out loud, “that was Hyuuga Hotaru, huh?”

Neji grits his teeth at the lack of honorifics. “Why do you care?” he asks.

“Your cousin is a legend at the Academy,” Tenten informs him, as if he doesn’t already know, “the youngest kunoichi ever recommended to take the chuunin exams by herself, the only person to score higher than Yondaime-sama on the written exams, the first solo entrant in two decades to get promoted as a rookie genin. I heard she trains fifteen hours a day.”

Lee clenches his fist and squeezes his eyelids shut. When he opens his eyes, his teammates can see the illusion of a blazing fire behind them. “Then I will train for twenty hours a day!” he yells.

Neji snorts and clicks his tongue against his teeth, making a snide _tch_ sound. “Don’t try to compete with Hotaru-sama,” he retorts, “you can’t even win against me.”

Tenten looks at him with an expression on her face caught between curiosity and confusion. “Wait,” she says. “I know she’s already a chuunin, but she’s younger than us. Why do you call her ‘Hotaru-sama’?”

Neji doesn’t have the patience to explain the hierarchy of the Hyuuga clan to her, so instead he turns and looks at a bird perched on the branch of a tree above them. “It’s none of your business,” he tells her, “we were classmates before and we may be teammates now, but we’re not friends. Don’t get so familiar with me.”

Gai narrows his eyes at that before he changes the subject. “Let’s talk about what I learned from sparring with all of you,” he says and holds up one finger. “Firstly, none of you have enough stamina. We’re going to start running a hundred laps around the village every morning and go from there. Lee,” he lifts another finger, “you’re going to focus on becoming a taijutsu specialist and train with the full power of youth! Tenten,” he says and holds up a third finger, “you’re going to make a list of every weapon you know how to use other than kunai, senbon, and shuriken. We’ll start practicing with a bo staff and work up to blades like tanto and kusarigama. Neji,” he lets his pinkie join the fray, “the Byakugan is the strongest bloodline limit in the Leaf, but relying on that is your greatest weakness. I heard from Iruka-sensei that you mastered two nature transformations before you graduated from the Academy. What elements can you use?”

“Earth and Water,” Neji tells him smugly.

Gai nods, a quick bob of his head. “I use Fire and Lightning,” he says. “Which do you want to learn from me first?”

* * *

There are deer in the Nara forest whose antlers have medicinal properties the clan has researched and developed for decades in a laboratory that predates the founding of Konohagakure. Other rare creatures live in the Hyuuga woods, including the Shinobi Ageha—a species of butterfly who shed featherlight scales from their iridescent wings. When pulverized, the scales of the Shinobi Ageha become powdered senjutsu chakra. It’s used by the Hyuuga to make ointment that supplements the internal chakra reserves of the wounded so they don’t hemorrhage energy in order to heal themselves.

Aburame Heiko visits once a year to observe the butterfly swarms and collect data on their preservation, since they’re classified as endangered. There are no records of Shinobi Ageha inhabiting any other forest in the world, even in myths and urban legends. Aburame Shino, her son and heir of the Aburame clan, starts accompanying her on her research expeditions when he’s four.

When he first saw Hotaru, they were both six years old. Shino was transfixed by the fluttering kaleidoscope of butterflies attempting to drink from her hair while she dozed on the edge of a giant sunflower that had grown too heavy for its stem to hold it higher than a foot off the ground, a scroll unfurled on top of the disk flowers next to her. Most girls who aren’t members of his clan don’t like the feeling of bugs crawling on them in his experience, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Shino had sent one of his bugs to investigate and they reported that her hair smelled like orange blossoms. It makes perfect sense for them to land on her head, since butterflies prefer to drink from slices of overripe fruit. Growing orange trees or bananas is a surefire way to attract swarms of butterflies.

Hotaru is named for a type of beetle. Genji-botaru or Luciola cruciata, part of the genus Luciola of the family Lampyridae. Unique because the females of the species are fully winged. Their larvae are aquatic and they go through six or seven instars before they metamorphose into adults, and they eat freshwater snails known as Semisulcospira libertina. Heike-botaru, another common variety of firefly, is named for a noble clan that went extinct before the Warring States era.

When he tells her this, Hotaru actually listens to him with a singular focus that makes him feel both seen and heard in a visceral way he doesn’t have the words to quantify. It doesn’t bother her to have the butterflies land in her fluffy hair, on the slopes of her thin shoulders, even on the soft tip of her nose. Shino almost commands one of his kikaichuu to creep over her foot to see what she would do, but Hotaru squashing one of his beetles isn’t an acceptable risk.

Hinata is shy in a way that Hotaru is not—she doesn’t attempt to make friends or converse with anyone in class. Shino approaches her in the library one afternoon, her thin shoulders hunched like gnarled roots as she reads a book on water-style ninjutsu. Hinata looks startled when he sits in the chair across from her, but then she offers him a shy inkling of a smile. Shino feels seen, feels simultaneously comfortable with the silence in the space between them and compelled to break it. Hinata and Hotaru don’t have very much in common, but they both make him feel all warm and fuzzy.

It becomes a tradition for Shino to bring Hotaru fireflies in a glass habitat where she watches the larvae go through molts and sets them free in the forest after they reach adulthood. Since the snails they eat carry parasites that are vectors for diseases like clonorchiasis, paragonimiasis, and metagonimiasis and exposure to the powder from their shells can induce silicosis, the introduction of fireflies into the Hyuuga clan forest is less invasive and more preventative. Although he’s always careful not to overpopulate the forest with fireflies, because Shino doesn’t want to make the snails extinct. Hotaru gives him jars of the whirling shells that she finds in the rice fields her family cultivates. Kana, his aunt, makes poison called kodoku from the powder.

When they’re eight, his distant cousin Aburame Youji is killed by Itachi on the night of the Uchiha clan downfall. Shino uses his kikai to extract the kochuu from the body and begins to breed them in order to create antibodies for their poison, another part of the research he wants to conduct with his colony of rinkaichuu. Hotaru is studying poisons too, using small doses to make herself immune under the supervision of Anko—whom his aunt mentored after Orochimaru abandoned her.

After her teammates are killed and Hotaru is promoted to chuunin, his cousin Muta is added to her reconnaissance squad. Muta isn’t a man of many words—Aburame are taciturn by nature and by nurture—but he smiles when Shino lingers by the entrance to their sect to ask nonverbally how their missions went. “Hyuuga-ojousama is curious,” his cousin says one evening, “and she has a habit of bringing home strays.”

Uzumaki Karin and Kaguya Kimimaro, two specimens from clans that had been presumed extinct until she found them, both shinobi with coveted bloodlines now in the hands of the Leaf.

Shino has been the host for a hive since he was only an hour old and his clan founded the field of entomology in the shinobi world—he knows a queen bee when he sees one. Although the Hyuuga are more of a challenge than drones or workers, because they all have minds of their own. There are similar power struggles among the sects of the Aburame, even though each of the sects was originally created to pursue different kinds of scientific research and breed different types of insects.

It wasn’t their intention to establish a hierarchy, but egalitarianism isn’t feasible in the shinobi world. There are some people born with more power than others. What those people do with their privilege and power shapes the course of history and determines the fate of their entire species.

* * *

When she visits his sect one afternoon in September between his twelfth birthday and hers to bring his family some mooncakes with his favorite five-kernel filling, Shino invites her in for a cup of tea. It’s the second day of the autumn lunar festival, so Hotaru stops by the Aburame clan altar room to burn a few sticks of incense at the family kamidana shrine decorated with a floral arrangement of white cosmos and susuki grass before she enters the small tea room and sits across from him at the chabudai. There’s a bowl of roasted chestnuts and a pile of Tsukimi dango on a plate in the middle of the low tea table, globular white dumplings shaped like earthbound moons. Hotaru is dressed in the Hyuuga version of semiformal: a white silk kimono with a black silk nagajuban and black shigoki-obi tied in a butterfly knot underneath a formal haori. Only her obijime is colorful—a multi-stranded silk marugumi cord made with intricately braided silver and gold threads encircling her waist.

Shino watches her from behind the dark lenses of his tinted glasses while she lets her teacup warm her pale hands. When one of his kikai perches on the second knuckle of her thumb, she tells it hello and waves at the beetle with the index finger of her other hand. Shino conceals his smile behind the high collar of his coat and sips his own tea. “You’re consolidating power,” he murmurs, “surrounding yourself with allies. Why?”

Hotaru chews and swallows the dango in her mouth before she shrugs. It’s obvious that she isn’t going to answer his question in detail with so many kikai buzzing around, but he wanted to see whether she would answer him honestly or not. “Un,” she hums and nods succinctly without elaborating before she asks, “do you want to be my ally, Shino-kun?”

Shino exhales with enough force to flare his nostrils as heat creeps up the back of his neck under his bulky collar. Hotaru is too perceptive sometimes. After what happened with Torune four years ago, he needs all the allies he can get. Danzou might not come for him if the future head of the Hyuuga clan is his friend. Shino also likes Hotaru and he doesn’t want her or Hinata to forget him the way Konoha has forgotten his cousin—the only brother he ever had. “Yes,” he says. “Why? Because I consider you a close friend.”

Hotaru tilts her head slantwise and stares at him, her eyes going wide for a fraction of a second. Shino almost stops breathing at the sight of her smile, quiet and luminous. Hotaru peels one, two, three of the chestnuts to stop herself from stimming by flapping her hands. Shino is also on the spectrum, but that doesn’t mean she’s free to display her disability in the main household of another clan. Hyuuga is always a cage, no matter where she is. “Thank you,” she tells him softly. “I consider you a close friend, too.”


	7. Pine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi is canonically able to open the first gate, the Gate of Opening 「開門」; he activates it while climbing a mountain one-handed to meet Sasuke for training in between the second and third stages of the chuunin exams. Opening the first gate allows the user to use 100% of the strength in their muscles and is a prerequisite for performing the Primary Lotus technique, but it also causes extreme muscle fatigue. Neji and Tenten are unable to learn the Reverse Lotus, which requires opening three of the Eight Inner Gates. Tenten can open the first gate. Neji can open the first and second gates, both located in the brain.

**This is the solstice, the still point**  
**of the sun, its cusp and midnight,**  
**the year’s threshold**  
**and unlocking, where the past**  
**lets go and becomes the future;**  
**the place of caught breath, the door**  
**of a vanished house left ajar.**  
**Taking hands like children**  
**lost in a six-dimensional**  
**forest, we step across.**

Margaret Atwood, “Shapechangers in Winter”

* * *

_Parhelion_  
**Part I** :  
Aphelion  
**Chapter 7** :  
Pine

* * *

_Pine means pity or hope in Japanese flower language. These needles can also symbolize compassion and longevity_.

* * *

**62 NSE**

* * *

Fire Country observes twenty holidays that are celebrated annually: Shougatsu on the first of January, Coming-of-Age Day on the fifteenth of January, Setsubun on the third of February, Heart Day on the fourteenth of February, Hinamatsuri on the third of March, White Day on the fourteenth of March, Shunbun between the twentieth and twenty-first of March, Hanamatsuri on the eighth of April, Ayamematsuri on the fifth of May, Geshi-sai between the twenty-first and twenty-second of June, Tanabata on the seventh of July, Obon between the fifteenth and seventeenth of August, Kikumatsuri on the ninth of September, Tsukimi between the fifteenth and seventeenth of September, Shuubun between the twenty-second and twenty-third of September, Kanname-sai on the seventeenth of October, Shichi-Go-San on the fifteenth of November, Niiname-sai on the twenty-third of November, Touji-sai between the twenty-first and twenty-second of December, and Omisoka on the thirty-first of December.

There are four additional holidays celebrated exclusively in Konohagakure: Konoha Day on the twenty-ninth of April to commemorate the founding of the village, Konkanmatsuri on the third of May to commemorate the election of the first Hokage, Shodai Day on the twenty-third of October to commemorate the birth of Senju Hashirama, and Rinnematsuri—a two-day festival that involves exchanging gifts—between the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of December.

Most shinobi clans have their own traditions and observations for certain holidays, although some of them celebrate with an open invitation to other shinobi and civilians to join in their festivities. Hanamatsuri is celebrated by the whole village every spring with flower viewing in the orchard of blooming cherry trees cultivated by the Yamanaka clan, and their shop is busiest on the days before festivals with flower names. Most of the prominent clans have their own places of worship, so the shrines and temples in the village are typically frequented by civilians and their families and only visited by members of shinobi clans on certain holidays—such as Shichi-Go-San and Coming-of-Age Day.

Hyuuga is more clannish than other families in the Leaf, but sometimes members of the clan are permitted to invite outsiders into the district on special occasions. Which is how Kimimaro, Lee, Karin, Naruto and Tenten find themselves at the gates of the Hyuuga district on the night of the winter solstice. Naruto grimaces and surreptitiously loosens the black tie knotted around his neck. Karin made him rent a suit because he doesn’t know how to put on a kimono. Naruto had wanted to wear a t-shirt and jeans, but apparently that’s not acceptable festival attire.

Lee is dressed in a white silk tangzhuang jacket with black trim and button knots over matching black silk pants. Tenten is wearing a sage green qipao dress patterned with bamboo sewn in black and white thread, with sleeves folded and cuffed above her wrists and a skirt that stops just below her knees. It has a slit up both sides of the skirt for mobility and she has fleece leggings on underneath. Karin is dressed in a black silk houmongi embroidered with vivid pink, red, and white camellias, a bright pink and black polka-dotted haneri and pink tenga-obi patterned with red pine trees, a red obiage and a black obijime. It was tailor-made for Karin, the colors and patterns chosen to highlight the vermillion shades of her Kagura eyes and cherry red Uzumaki hair. Kimimaro is wearing formal brocade haori-hakama: pale green montsuki kimono, white nagajuban, white date-eri, white obi, black and white striped pants, pale green montsuki haori with the Kaguya clan kamon on the back and white haori-himo.

Tokuma meets them at the gates, where his girlfriend is also waiting. Yurika is a cryptologist: one of the people who decodes all of the communications that come into the village. Tokuma being with someone who isn’t a Hyuuga is frowned upon by the clan, especially since he’s twenty-three—three years older than marriageable age. Ordinarily, boys who belong to the branch families marry as young as eighteen and girls often marry as young as sixteen. Ruri married Hoheto after Hanabi enrolled at the Academy two years ago, when his sister was nineteen and their cousin was twenty-three—the same age as Tokuma. If she hadn’t been chosen to protect Hanabi, she would be under pressure to get pregnant as soon as possible. Fortunately, her duties to the main household take priority over her wifely duties so Ruri doesn’t have to start worrying about getting pregnant until Hanabi graduates and becomes a genin.

“Multiple births run in the family, Ani-ue,” Ruri had deadpanned. “There are four pairs of twins and a set of triplets in our generation alone. We’re using three kinds of birth control until Hanabi-sama gets promoted to chuunin. Don’t tell Haha-ue.”

Tokuma swallows as sigh and takes Yurika by the hand, intertwining their fingers as the gates whisper shut behind them. Ruri and Hoheto are happy and in love with each other—and neither of them has been killed in action yet. Which is more than most Hyuuga ever get from their arranged marriages. _I should warn you_ , he taps in between her knuckles in Morse code, _the elders won’t approve of anyone who isn’t a Hyuuga. Don’t take it personally_.

 _Don’t worry_ , Yurika taps on the back of his hand and when she tilts her shoulder against his upper arm Tokuma can feel the soft tremors of her soundless laughter, _I won’t. Hotaru-chan explained the genetics of the Byakugan to me in one of her messages. It doesn’t matter if they approve of me or not_.

Tokuma squeezes her hand and frowns. _I suppose you still can’t tell me why my princess is writing coded messages to you?_ he taps. It’s a rhetorical question. Hotaru doesn’t hide things from him unless she thinks she absolutely has to. If she isn’t telling him why she and his girlfriend are in cahoots, she probably has something planned that she doesn’t want her father or the elders to know about.

“So,” Naruto says to break the quiet as they step onto a stone path decorated with twinkling white lights and incandescent paper lanterns hanging from small threefold clusters of trees planted in auspicious combinations of black pine, bamboo and plum, “is the whole family gonna be here tonight? Hinata told me—”

Tokuma keeps an eye on Yurika’s feet to make sure that she doesn’t fall, because traditional sandals are difficult to walk in—especially okobo. “Since when did you and Hinata-sama stop using honorifics?” he wants to know.

Naruto hunches his shoulders in the confines of his suit jacket and shrugs. “Since a few months ago,” he says. “Hinata and Hotaru-chan still call me ‘Naruto-kun,’ but I don’t mind. No one else in the village uses honorifics with me, dattebayo!”

Tenten blows soft puffs of warm air onto her cold fingers while she walks and wonders if snow is going to fall in time for Rinnematsuri. “We should probably use ‘-gimi’ tonight,” she says. “Since the Hyuuga clan is related to the Daimyo.”

“How’s that?” Naruto asks.

Kimimaro sighs, his breath crystallizing in the air for a few seconds before it vanishes. “Hiroki-sama is the former head of the Hyuuga,” he says, “his older sister Hatsune-sama married the former head of the Taketori clan—vassals of the Madoka clan who rule in Tou Province. Their daughter Hatsumi-dono is married to Madoka Issei-dono, the current Daimyo of Fire Country. Hyuuga-sama and Madoka-dono are cousins by marriage. Hotaru and Madoka Ikkyuu-dono, the heir to the throne of Fire Country, are first cousins once removed. If the Hyuuga weren’t shinobi, they would be the rulers of this country.”

“If the Hyuuga weren’t shinobi,” Tokuma says mildly, “the Heike shogunate would have wiped us out five hundred years ago. We’re lucky they didn’t strip our family of its noble status to void any claim my ancestors had on the Chrysanthemum Throne.”

Naruto shuts up after that while he ascends the path to the Hyuuga clan temple complex and stares at the towering wooden torii gates above them painted in shades of blue, their silhouettes obvoluted by the boughs of ancient black pine trees and branches of bare palmate maples. Two stone komainu guard the entrance to the shrine: one roaring with its mouth open, the other with its mouth shut. Naruto stops and stares at the lion-dogs in confusion. “I thought you worshipped the dragon god,” he says.

“Watatsumi-sama—one of our divine ancestors—is the dragon god,” Tokuma explains, “but shrines to specific kami don’t typically contain effigies or statues of the deities themselves. These are guardian statues the ninety-fifth head of the clan bought after the pair before them became tsukumogami. We have to replace them every hundred years because they get inhabited by spirits and come to life.”

Tenten looks over her shoulder at the crouching statues and imagines them as living, breathing creatures. “What do you do with the komainu once they’re alive?” she wants to know.

“We use them as ninjuu,” Tokuma says, “the heir to the main household inherits the komainu summoning contract on her thirteenth birthday. Hotaru-sama and Hinata-sama will be able to make a contract with the komainu a year and five days from now.”

Lee frowns, the space between his bushy eyebrows furrowing. Neji had turned thirteen that summer, but he hasn’t made a contract with any kind of summon creature. Lee knows better than to ask Tokuma why—because the reason is probably a Hyuuga clan secret that cannot be shared with outsiders—but it seems awfully unfair of them to leave Neji out of something that should be his birthright.

Kimimaro uses a ladle floating in the temizuya to purify his hands and face, and they all copy him before they cross over a bridge to enter the shrine. There’s a hallway that connects the hall of worship and hall of offerings to the inner sanctuary of the main temple, built around a waterfall that flows into a pool of deep water. Kimimaro has been inside the shrine a handful of times, and he doesn’t hesitate before he follows Tokuma and Yurika into the hall of worship lit by hexagonal bronze tsuri-doro lanterns hanging from the eaves of the roof.

Hotaru is standing at the edge of the pool dressed in a black kariginu, her sleeves decorated with immaculate white silk cords that match the cords intricately knotted to fasten her round collar on the right side of her neck. Underneath her cloak and black nubakama, she wears a white silk hitoe kimono and a red underkimono. Hinata is dressed in a white kariginu decorated with black silk cords, white nubakama, black silk hitoe, and a red underkimono. Their feet are bare and pale in the moonlight filtering into the sanctuary. Hotaru has red and white ribbons in her hair, the fluffy black nimbus tied in a traditional osuberakashi style. It’s chilling how otherworldly they both look standing on the surface of the water, like a pair of reflections in a cracked mirror.

There are dozens of other Hyuuga in the hall of worship, all with the same ethereal pure white eyes. Lee counts thirty-eight of them, not including Hotaru and Hinata. Tenten is surprised by the variation in hair colors: they don’t all have black or dark brown hair, although none of them are blonde. It’s eerie how similar they all look beneath the different formalwear and hairstyles: they all have the same hair type, delicate features designed to make the gods envy them, angular jaws and narrow chins, expressive sharp eyebrows and obscenely long eyelashes. Tenten knows from experience that Neji’s hair is perpetually flawless—he wakes up devoid of bedhead no matter where they sleep during missions. Maybe the legends about the Hyuuga clan being descended from a celestial maiden are true. It would explain why he never gets any zits.

Neji is dressed in a black formal montsuki kimono and haori on top of black and white striped hakama and white haori-himo, with his long hair tied higher than his forehead in a traditional sagegami reminiscent of a samurai from the Bafuku Era instead of his usual hairstyle; he’s standing by one of the many wooden pillars that punctuate the halls of the shrine with his mother, who is just as striking as Tenten expected. Midori has long brown hair burnished with threads of umber, the same fair skin as her son and a thin pale scar on her neck where her throat was slit by a garrote wire. Geometric kikko shapes in vivid colors brighten up the matte black rinzu of her fukuro-obi, white karakusa vines embossed with silver and gold thread are embroidered all over the purple omeshi fabric of her formal houmongi, and an enamel obidome shaped like a bird in flight is pinned to her obijime. Midori wears a kimono like blades wear ornate sheaths. Heavy and sharp. Beauty with the potential for violence, like fine silk honed into a steel edge. Neji has that same cool atmosphere around him—the aura of power that elite shinobi typically possess.

Lee goes to greet Hiashi first before he bows to Midori with his hands folded over and under his forearms inside the voluminous sleeves of his jacket. Tenten did extensive research on Touji-sai festival traditions and formal etiquette, but she’s not sure how to act with the Hyuuga specifically. After a year of being on the same team with him, she knows Neji is less inscrutable than he seemed when they were students at the Academy. Tenten also knows things about the Hyuuga clan that puts the formality of his family into an oppressive context. Lee obviously feels it too, if the dash of tension in his shoulders is any indication.

Neji acknowledges them by turning his head and looking in their direction with a small fluttering smile that flits over the left corner of his mouth: a mokurei greeting. “Hello, Lee,” he says, “Tenten.”

Tenten can sense the palpable weight of disapproving eyes shifting onto her, onto Lee. If she couldn’t, she wouldn’t be much of a kunoichi. Neji is a genius—the number one rookie—and he belongs to the most prominent clan in the Leaf village. Lee is the heir of a clan of civilians whose only claim to fame is not being able to use chakra with the precision required to perform ninjutsu or genjutsu, and Tenten is a commoner through and through. Neither of her parents had last names and none of her ancestors ever did anything noteworthy. Tenten wants to become a legendary kunoichi like her idol Tsunade-hime and be the first member of her family to have her story written in the history books. Neji has what she wants—the legacy, the history, the legend—but it’s not worth being caged or cursed. Tenten is going to find her own way, a better way.

Neji folds his arms loosely over his chest and leans back against the pillar. Hotaru is looking up through the ceiling at the moon. It’s waxing gibbous, two days away from its full illumination. Hotaru and Hinata move to stand in the center of the pool facing each other. Their footsteps generate ripples that fluctuate over the surface of the water, distorting the shimmers caught on its surface as they begin to dance.

“What’s up with Hotaru-chan and Hinata?” Naruto asks, his voice too loud. “Why’re they dressed like priests?”

Neji sighs. “It’s part of the musubi ceremony,” he explains curtly. “According to legend, in the beginning the sun was red and shadow was pure white. These opposing forces were merged to create the universe and that union brought the first gods—the five Kotoamatsukami—into being. Amenominakanushi, the first kami, is one of our divine ancestors. Hotaru-sama is dressed in black and Hinata-sama is dressed in white to signify the yin and yang energy, the balance of power in the universe. It’s the opposite during our midsummer festival. Hotaru-sama wears the white joue while Hinata-sama wears the black kariginu, and they dance on the water in the shintai. Although the people who perform the dance are usually the head of the clan and their spouse or the heir and their betrothed, Hiashi-sama is a widower and Hotaru-sama isn’t betrothed to anyone yet. Hinata-sama has been her partner since they were five.”

“So,” Naruto says, unperturbed by the aghast looks he’s getting from the assorted Hyuuga for interrupting their sacred ceremony with his profane thoughts, “have you ever actually seen these gods of yours?”

Midori is the one who answers him. “Hyuuga don’t believe in things we can’t see,” she says.

* * *

Hotaru loves to dance. Spinning and twirling just to feel the rotation of the earth swirling around her until she gets dizzy with it. Moving without lethal intentions and indulging herself in the whirling thrill of using her body as something other than a weapon.

It’s not as fun when the steps are choreographed and deviation is not an option, but manipulating the water into showers of sparkling droplets that glimmer in the moonlit air makes up for that. Watatsumi can watch her and her sister dance from the other side of the pool, which is supposedly a portal to Ryuuguujou—the undersea palace of the dragon god. Since one day and night in Ryuuguujou is the equivalent of a century in the mortal realm, they don’t visit the palace if they can help it. Rikuro—the younger sister of the second head of the clan—became the bride of Sokotsu, the eldest son of the dragon god. It’s been ten days in the palace, and over a thousand years on earth. Hotaru wonders if Rikuro is watching them dance, too.

Hinata stops when they’re facing each other in the center of the pool again, elbows bent and open hands palm to palm; the ceremonial dance always ends where it begins, like a circle. Kou is waiting at the edge of the water to help her step back down to earth. Tokuma is totally preoccupied with his date, so Kimimaro offers his skeletal hand to Hotaru after she puts her tabi socks and okobo back on her feet. Hotaru tucks one of her hands into the crook of his elbow and lets him lead her into the hall of worship. It’s not difficult to walk in her platform sandals, but she’s tired from her extensive training session with Kakashi the afternoon before. Yurika bows to her after she crosses the wooden threshold into the haiden, her okobo clacking softly against the cypress floorboards. It’s not a formal bow, more a gesture of respect. Hotaru nods to her in acknowledgement before Lee bounces over to her and her sister.

“Hinata-san!” he exclaims jubilantly. “Hotaru-san! You were amazing!”

Hinata fidgets with her fingers and smiles at him shyly. “Thank you,” she says.

“Un,” Hotaru says and winces as the muscles in her arms start to ache. “I’m sore.”

Karin frowns. “From dancing?” she asks, her sharp tone skeptical.

“No,” Hotaru says. “From climbing Hokage Rock yesterday. Kakashi-sensei has been teaching me how to open the first of the Eight Inner Gates. I opened the Gate of Opening, and then we went mountain climbing. Kakashi-sensei used one hand,” she grins and flaps her hands. Kimimaro lets her flail the fingers tucked in the bend of his elbow and smiles more to himself than at her, a soft uptick in one corner of his mouth. “It was awesome,” she says. “I’m still exhausted.”

“You opened the Gate of Opening?” Lee says, his mouth gaping open in shock. “That is very impressive!”

“Neji-niisan can open two gates,” Hotaru mutters. Neji is staring at her with his back against one of the wooden pillars, his arms folded like armor strapped across his chest. Hotaru swallows hard at the sight of him in her periphery and forces herself not to tighten her grip on the fulcrum that is Kimimaro.

Tenten, who is also only able to open the first of the Eight Inner Gates so far, grins at her. “It’s not a competition,” she says.

Hotaru glances at Hinata. _Maybe not for you_ , she thinks ruefully, _but in our house, everything is a competition_. “We should go change out of our ceremonial robes before the feast,” she says as she extricates herself from her fulcrum and forms the seal of confrontation with one hand. “There’s nabe, tangyuan, and gyouza for everyone who isn’t Karin-chan,” she adds before she teleports out of the shrine and into her bedroom.

Tenten is left blinking at the void where Hotaru and Hinata were. Neji stops leaning with his back against the pillar and squeezes his eyelids shut. If only he could stop thinking about the way his cousin looks cloaked in moonlight, with red silk ribbons in her black hair.


	8. Red Zinnia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) It’s canon that after death souls go through purgatory or Naraka 「地獄」 to get to the Buddhist afterworld called the Pure Lands 「浄土」. I think people would see death very differently if the existence of the afterlife was common knowledge, but that wouldn’t make losing the people that you love any less devastating. It would be cold comfort, because they’re on another plane of existence where you can’t go.
> 
> (2) Type H botulinum is the deadliest substance in the world. If you inject a healthy adult with two billionths of a gram, they die. Technically all Type H strains are hybrids of Type A and Type F botulinum, and they can be neutralized with serotype A antitoxins.

**There’s a calculus to wishing.**  
**It’s all about angles of desire.**  
**If you really want something,**  
**don’t you dare aim for it—**  
**don’t ever speak its name.**

Mindy Nettifee, “When I Was Your Age I Was Jumping Off Cliffs”

* * *

_Parhelion_  
**Part I** :  
Aphelion  
**Chapter 8** :  
Red Zinnia

* * *

_Zinnias mean loyalty in Japanese flower language. These flowers have another significant meaning in Western flower language: “I mourn your absence” or “thoughts of absent friends.” Red Zinnias symbolize family ties or steadfastness of the heart_.

* * *

**63 NSE**

* * *

After her twelfth birthday, puberty hits Hotaru like a ton of bricks. Zits accumulate on her forehead under her bangs where sweat gets trapped during her training. There’s also dark hair where she didn’t have dark hair before and more anxiety than she’s ever had in her life.

Neji, at thirteen and a half, shows no signs of going through an awkward phase anytime soon. Hotaru kind of wants to punch him in his stupid face.

According to one of the books she read, puberty is the beginning of self-consciousness. When you start worrying about how other people see you and their perception of who you are potentially becomes more important than how you see yourself. Hotaru, as the future head of the Hyuuga clan, has been worrying about how other people see her for most of her life. Those perceptions are something that she became cognizant of from the first moment she learned what the sensation of being watched feels like, somewhere around her second birthday. Hyuuga eyes see through everything, and Hotaru is nothing if not a Hyuuga.

 _If someone asked who I am individually_ , she thinks, _I wouldn’t be able to answer them. I don’t think I’ve ever actually done anything just for myself_.

According to one of the books she read, puberty is also the beginning of self-autonomy, of rebelling against your environment and feeling the desire to escape from dependence on adults. Hotaru has been rebelling in small ways for years: piercing her ears, talking back to her father and grandfather, protecting the people who belong to the branch house. Although most of that wasn’t just for herself—even piercing her ears was something she only did because she knew her father and grandfather would absolutely hate it.

It’s also supposedly the beginning of increased interest in sex. Hotaru is interested in sex, because sex is a tool all kunoichi eventually learn how to use. After her thirteenth birthday, Hotaru will legally be able to have sex with anyone over the minimal age of consent. Leaf shinobi don’t typically get assigned seduction missions until they’re eighteen at minimum, though. There are occasionally missions targeting child molesters or pedophiles, but those are typically assigned to adult chuunin or jounin who can use a henge to look underage.

Special training for seduction begins at sixteen for ninja of any and all genders. Hotaru belongs to a noble shinobi clan, so they won’t expect her to lose her virginity as part of her training. It’s still not something that she has the luxury of avoiding, especially since her body is already changing irrevocably.

Hotaru narrows her eyes at her reflection in the mirror and glances down at her bare chest, specifically the breasts she didn’t have two years ago—they’ve been growing fast enough to gouge stretch marks into her skin. _I can’t use chest bindings or bandages to keep these in check anymore_ , she thinks ruefully, _I need a real bra with support and structural integrity_.

Trouble is, she has no idea how to shop for a real bra: one that actually fits her and makes her feel comfortable in her own skin. Hotaru makes a mental list of every older woman she knows—Anko, her grandmother, her aunts, her cousins, Yurika—and is methodically thinking about the pros and cons of asking each of them for something this awkward when a messenger hawk lands on the sill outside her window and taps its talons against the pane of glass.

Hotaru opens the window and offers her forearm to the hawk, who perches on top of her weighted training bandages and sticks its leg out. When she takes the tiny scroll, the hawk stares at her with its eerie yellow eyes before it flies away. Hotaru knows before she opens the scroll that it’s a summon: orders to report to the office of the Hokage at X time on X day.

There’s never much information contained in those messages, because even missions deemed official are designated as covert operations before they become a matter of record. Hotaru has officially completed forty-three successful missions in her five years as a shinobi: three D-rank, seventeen C-rank, thirteen B-rank, seven A-rank, and three S-rank. Some of her mission records are sealed for diplomatic reasons. Others are redacted because their contents pertain to privileged information only the Hokage, members of the Council, or the Daimyo can access.

Hotaru glances at the scroll that Yurika returned to her on the night of the winter solstice. On the bright side, it contains all of the information her grandfather never wanted her to know about the caged bird curse seal—including how to undo it. Yurika took almost four years to decode the scroll, but it was totally worth the wait. On the darker side, the unsealing jutsu she needs to learn is a technique only ten shinobi in the history of the world have been able to use. Hotaru sighs and takes another bite of her sandwich, her lunch hour ticking down while she chews and swallows.

 _Hina is taking her graduation exams on Saturday_ , she thinks. _Shino-kun and Naruto-kun, too. I don’t want to go on mission and miss the ceremony_.

Tokuma meets her at the archery range after lunch. Kyuujutsu is a martial art practiced by shinobi and samurai clans, a style of traditional archery where the weapon of choice is a tall asymmetric wooden bow called a yumi. Hotaru practices using wind-style jutsu to alter the trajectory of her arrows in order to hit multiple targets with one shot. Since her hands are small, two arrows per shot is her limit. Tokuma can fire three arrows per shot and center all three of his targets every time—the mark of a true master.

 _Fly_ , she thinks as she forms the one-handed wind seal with three of her fingers curled gently around the grip of the spinning bow in her hand, _pierce and center_.

Yahata, a god of war and one of the divine ancestors of the Uchiha clan, founded the first ancient school of kyuujutsu and taught her ancestors the eight stages of shooting centuries ago. First: ashibumi, the placement of the feet. Second: dozukuri, the formation of the body. Third: yugamae, preparing to shoot—split into three phases. Torikake, the gripping of the bowstring. Tenouchi, positioning your left hand on the nigiri—grip—of your bow. Monomi, turning of the head to gaze at your targets. Fourth: uchiokoshi, raising the bow and preparing to draw. Fifth: hikiwake, drawing apart. Sixth: kai, the full draw with the arrows level to your mouth and cheekbone. Seventh: hanare, the release. Eight: zanshin, the remaining body and mind. After she moves through seven of the eight stages at lightning speed and releases her bowstring, she activates her Byakugan and focuses on both of her arrows. There are three levels of skill in kyuujutsu. Touteki, the arrows hit your targets. Kanteki, the arrows should pierce your targets. Zaiteki, the arrows exist within your targets.

Hotaru watches them hit both targets dead center and smiles. _Zaiteki_ , she thinks, and reloads.

* * *

When she enters the office of the Hokage the next day, she expects the Sandaime to send her and her squad on their monthly recon mission. Hotaru is surprised to see Kakashi standing off to one side, next to Anko. “You’re here,” she says, “on time.”

“I can be punctual,” Kakashi says. “I even got here before you.”

Hotaru valiantly resists the urge to roll her eyes at him, because that wouldn’t be proper. “You can’t be joining our squad,” she deduces. “You’re being assigned to a new team of genin this weekend.”

“This isn’t about a mission,” Anko informs her. “You passed the jounin exams a month ago.”

Hiruzen nods. “After a candidate passes their written exams,” he says, “we conduct a performance review and interview the jounin who have collaborated with the candidate during missions. If three or more of them recommend you in their assessments, the office of the Hokage determines whether the candidate is qualified for a promotion. Anko-san, Kakashi-san and I have recommended you. Hyuuga Hotaru-ojousama, you are now a jounin of Konohagakure.”

It takes every ounce of her self-control for Hotaru not to gape at him, open-mouthed and shocked. After her probationary guard mission with Kimimaro, she thought she wasn’t going to win the bet that she made. If she gets promoted before her thirteenth birthday, her father—as the head of their clan—grants permission for every Hyuuga in her generation except her to marry whomever they choose. Hinata and Hanabi can grow up and fall in love without fear of being forced into an arranged marriage. Neji won’t be ordered to breed his genius into the main bloodline on his eighteenth birthday. Tokuma can propose to Yurika with the ring he’s been hiding in his sock drawer.

Kakashi smiles at her behind his mask, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Anko offers her a pair of silver pins in the shape of leaves, the symbol of their village—tangible proof that she is now an elite shinobi of Konohagakure. Hotaru tucks them both into the pocket of her flak jacket instead of pinning them to her collar and swallows hard, her pulse a slow throb caught in her throat. “Otsukaresama deshita,” she says and bows low to Hiruzen with her hands folded in front of her and the crown of her head level with his desk. “Please don’t tell my father.”

“Why?” Hiruzen wants to know.

Hotaru unbends her spine and squares her shoulders. “Hina is going to become a genin on Saturday,” she explains, “I’ve been outshining her all our lives. I don’t want to ruin her moment by overshadowing her accomplishments with my promotion.”

If her family knew about this, Hinata would be happy for her and congratulate her without any malice or resentment festering in the chambers of her soft heart. Their father would ruin the moment by making her sister feel unworthy for being unable to mirror her accomplishments, instead of letting Hinata bloom in her own way. If her twin wasn’t stronger than she thinks she is, her inferiority complex would have eaten her alive by now.

Hotaru is proud of Hinata, but that’s not enough to eclipse Hiashi’s disappointment. There’s no way for her to fix that, but she can strategically avoid overshadowing her twin sister on her graduation day. Hotaru puts herself under too much pressure, but pressure is what makes diamonds out of oxidized carbon. _I can take it_ , she thinks, _because I have to. What other choice do I have?_

“Your mother would be proud,” Hiruzen tells her.

Hotaru bites down on the inside of her cheek and keeps her hands folded in front of her as those old pangs of grief coalesces into a lump in her throat. It brings a hazy memory bubbling up from the depths of her mind: the brilliant smile her mother gave her before the med-nin took her away, the last of her that Hotaru ever saw. “I hope so,” she says.

* * *

When she walks into the Yamanaka flower shop, San-chan is behind the counter. San-chan—Yamanaka Santa—is a skinny, pale jounin with auburn hair in a high ponytail and winged eyeliner around his sharp eyes; he’s one of Iroha’s best friends and he’s one of the best sensor type shinobi in the village. Ageha-kun is his little brother. Or was. Shiho is his younger sister.

“Hotaru-chan.” San-chan looks up from the book he was reading at the counter and smiles at her. “Your usual?”

One long-stemmed red spider lily or a pheasant’s eye is her usual: higanbana for Izumi and fukujusou for Ageha-kun, whose graves she visits every Wednesday or Sunday. It’s Tuesday, but San-chan doesn’t know she picked a day of the week for each of her dead friends—a day where she takes a picnic to each of their graves and talks to them while she eats her lunch in a futile attempt to fill the void they left in her life. San-chan doesn’t need to know she can’t let go, even though her friends are in a better place now.

“No,” Hotaru informs him, “I need hyssop. It’s for my mother.”

* * *

It’s been almost seven years since her mother died. Hanabi is turning seven in two days and their grandfather Hatori—the family high priest—is going to perform the seventh anniversary tsuizen rites for Ageha at the family shrine before they celebrate her birthday. It’s unfair to Hanabi, who is haunted by the sacrifice her mother chose to make.

Hotaru sits in front of the monument in seiza and traces the carved letters of her parents’ names on the gravestone with her fingertips: 「日向 鳳」 carved in black and 「日向 火脚」 tinted red. “I was promoted to jounin today,” she murmurs. “Hokage-sama said you would be proud, but would you? I’m not proud of being alive while my friends are dead,” she inhales sharply through her nose and bites her bottom lip before she says, “while your bones and ashes are here and you’re in the afterworld where even my Byakugan can’t see you. I understand why you chose to make the sacrifice you made, but sometimes I need you and you’re not here and _I hate it_. Otousama sucks. I can’t talk to him about…” she laughs ruefully and chokes as she tries not to dissolve into a deluge of tears, “…literally anything that matters. There’s no one I can talk to and I hate it.”

Iroha crouches in her periphery and touches her shoulder tentatively. When she doesn’t flinch or emit chakra from those points to push him away, he squeezes gently. Iroha hasn’t seen Hotaru cry since she was two years old; after she began her training and enrolled at the Academy, she never let herself shed a tear or break down where anyone could see. No matter how lonely she felt. Maybe she got her sense of justice from her mother, but she got all her unhealthy coping mechanisms from her father.

Hotaru sniffles and swallows the bile accumulating in the back of her throat. “I…” she gulps and gasps before she forces the words out, “…I miss my mom.”

“I know,” Iroha says, “she misses you, too.”

* * *

Most toxins used by shinobi are odorless, colorless and tasteless. Others are designed to paralyze the victim so they can’t tell anyone they’ve been poisoned or disintegrate in the body postmortem so they don’t show up on an autopsy. When she isn’t doing reconnaissance and looking for Orochimaru, Anko works in the Konoha medical research lab developing manmade toxins—sedatives and paralytics and more lethal concoctions.

Hotaru knows toxins; she knows the symptoms associated with phototoxins ( _they cause allergic reactions and photosensitivity_ ), hemotoxins ( _they destroy erythrocytes and cause tissue damage_ ), neurotoxins ( _they effect the nervous system_ ) and necrotoxins ( _they destroy all cells they encounter_ ). There are only two primary functions of toxins: predation ( _subduing and killing prey_ ) and defense ( _fighting back against a predator_ ). It’s eat or get eaten.

Most people eat or drink or breathe in small amounts of poison every day. There’s a toxic goitrogen in broccoli called thiocyanate—a glycosinolate capable of causing hyperthyroidism symptomatic of brassica poisoning—but eating one serving of broccoli isn’t going to kill anyone. Anko-sensei is always telling her: the dose is what makes the poison.

Hotaru still ignored the symptoms the first time one of her relatives started poisoning her with increments of Type H botulinum—the deadliest substance on the planet. It was so easy to mistake the symptoms of fatigue and blurred vision for signs that she’s been overusing her Byakugan during her training again. Hotaru would’ve died if she didn’t run diagnostic tests on her blood once a week to monitor the biological process of building up her immunity to other toxins and to check herself for poison. Anko-sensei had to administer the antitoxin because she was too sick to find a vein and dose herself. There were no cognitive deficits caused by the neurotoxin, but they could have damaged her brain.

 _I need my brain_ … she thinks groggily as her eyes flutter shut, … _to brain_.

Hiashi is sitting by her bedside the morning after with his shoulders hunched and both of his hands clutching in front of his face, his knuckles clenching white and bloodless as his fingertips dig into the backs of his hands. Hanabi is asleep next to him, bundled up with Hinata in her vibrant orange blanket. Hotaru peels her pale eyes open and blinks sluggishly.

“Otousama,” she rasps, her throat still aching from all of the vomiting she went through while she built up the antibodies to make the serum that saved her life.

Hiashi narrows his eyes at his daughter and Hotaru is shocked to see that he’s been crying. Their father doesn’t cry—he makes Hinata cry. Yet here he sits, his eyes swollen and sorrow engraved in the bags of puffiness beneath them.

“It was your grandmother who poisoned you,” he says, his voice hoarse and shattered like broken glass. “It was a nonlethal dose.”

Hotaru wheezes. “What,” she mutters, “she thought damaging my brain was going to stop me from being the future head of this family? Or she thought any cognitive deficits she caused wouldn’t matter because I’m already neuroatypical?”

Hiashi clenches his jaw and looks away. It was his own mother who poisoned his daughter because she didn’t want someone on the spectrum to become the head of the clan. Hiashi thought everything his heir has accomplished might change their perception of her disorder, but some minds can’t—or won’t—change.

Hotaru wheezes again, her rueful laughter curled like claws in her throat. This isn’t the first time she’s been poisoned by someone from the main house, or the second, or third, or fourth, or fifth, or even sixth. Hotaru knows that it won’t be the last, either. “It’s like antivaxxers,” she murmurs. “Obaasama would rather have a dead granddaughter than a live autistic one.”

“Your friend sent a message,” Hiashi says after the heavy silence begins to suffocate both of them and Hotaru knows exactly which friend he means by the hint of disdain in his voice, “he won’t be coming to dinner on Friday because his team was deployed on a C-rank mission to Wave Country.”

Hotaru glances at her twin, who is obviously awake but attempting to fake being asleep because she doesn’t want to make things more awkward by interjecting. “Okay,” she mumbles. “I’m sure you’re very disappointed.”

“I am,” Hiashi tells her sharply, “I’m disappointed in myself. I know you’re a jounin, but you’re still a child. I should have protected you.”

Hotaru squirms to sit up with her back against the pillows behind her before she activates her Byakugan and glares at her grandparents through her bedroom wall. _You’re afraid_ , she thinks when her grandfather flinches. _Good. You should be_. “I can protect myself,” she retorts. “Watch me.”

* * *

“So,” Anko plunks her elbows down and stares at Hotaru from across the wooden table at their favorite soba restaurant, “it was your grandmother who poisoned you?”

Hotaru nods and hums in conformation, her mouth full of buckwheat noodles. “Un.”

“That’s _awesome_.” Anko grins at her. “It’s not awesome that you almost died, but…” she grins even wider, “…now I know who you got your balls of steel from.”

Hotaru rolls her eyes and makes a conscious effort not to slurp her soba. It’s difficult to eat noodles like a lady, but she has years of practice. Honoka, her grandmother, taught her everything she knows.

“So.” Anko leans forward curiously. “What did your father do?”

Hotaru uses her chopsticks to scoop up more noodles and snorts. This debacle made her see how weak her father is, in every way that matters other than military strength; he’s afraid of going up against his parents, even though he’s the head of the clan and they’re not. Hotaru is afraid of the elders because she knows what they’re capable of, but she’s not going to let that fear stop her from doing what she thinks is right. It might’ve been a mistake to speak out against the sealing tradition, but that was a mistake worth making because now they’re focused on her instead of her sisters or Neji or the members of the branch house that had been plotting a rebellion before her uncle died. “Nothing,” she deadpans.

“That _fucker_.”

Hotaru stops drinking her cherry soda and laughs so hard she almost gets something carbonated up her nose. “Obaasama didn’t use a lethal dose,” she explains, “and my brain wasn’t damaged. So the elders refused to acknowledge that any harm was done. Which is why I put Type E botulinum toxin in her pu-erh. It won’t kill her, but she’ll have explosive botulism diarrhea for weeks.”

Anko clinks her teacup against her glass. “You’re diabolical,” she says.

Hotaru grins and clinks back. “I learned from the best.”


	9. [Appendix I] The Hyuuga Clan

* * *

_The Hyuuga Clan_

* * *

One of the four noble shinobi clans of Konohagakure, the strongest clan in the village. Founded during the Tennou era, approximately 1,000 years pre-series. Originally a cadet branch of the imperial Otsutsuki clan. Served as vassals of the Daimyo of Fire Country before the village hidden in the leaves was founded.

* * *

_Notable Clan Members_

* * *

HYUUGA TAIYOU, first head of the clan, younger twin brother of Emperor Tenji.

HYUUGA KOUSEN, second head of the clan, creator of the Gentle Fist.

HYUUGA RIKURO, younger twin sister of Kousen, became the bride of the dragon god Sokotsu.

HYUUGA HOURAI, third head of the clan, the first Hyuuga to use chakra.

HYUUGA TENNYO, daughter of Otsutsuki Hamura, wife of Hourai.

HYUUGA KEI, fourth head of the clan, the first Hyuuga to wield the Byakugan.

HYUUGA SHAKAH, daughter of Otsutsuki Asura and Senju Kanna, wife of Kei, the first and only Hyuuga to wield the Jougan.

HYUUGA HOUKI, fifth head of the clan, the first Hyuuga to wield the Wood Release kekkei genkai.

HYUUGA HISASHI, ninety-sixth head of the clan, a warlord of the Sengoku era known for negotiating alliances between the Hyuuga, Aburame, Uchiha, Akimichi, Nara, and Yamanaka clans.

HYUUGA KATSURA, wife of Hisashi, an onna-bugeisha from the Sengoku era.

HYUUGA EIMI, ninety-seventh head of the clan, an onna-bugeisha who fought alongside her father and mother in the Sengoku era; a contemporary of Senju Hashirama.

HYUUGA HIROKI, ninety-eighth head of the clan, the first head of the Hyuuga clan in the history of Konohagakure.

HYUUGA HIASHI, ninety-ninth head of the clan, killed the Sandaime Raikage during the Third Shinobi World War.

HYUUGA HIZASHI, younger twin brother of Hiashi, died to prevent a war between Konohagakure and Kumogakure.

* * *

_Main House_

* * *

HYUUGA EIMI 「日向 榮見」, ninety-seventh head of the clan, eldest daughter of Hisashi and Katsura; her name is written using the kanji for “prosperity” or “honorable” and “eye.” _Deceased_.

HYUUGA HARUTO 「日向 陽鍍」, cousin and husband of Eimi; his name means “gilded sunshine.” _Deceased_.

HYUUGA HATSUNE 「日向 初子」, daughter of Eimi and Haruto; unable to activate the Byakugan; married the head of the Taketori clan; her name means “first child.”

HYUUGA HIROKI 「日向 鴻輝」, ninety-eighth head of the clan, one of the clan elders, eldest son of Eimi and Haruto; his name is written using the kanji for “large bird” or “prosperous” and “radiance.”

HYUUGA HONOKA 「日向 焔華」, cousin and wife of Hiroki, one of the clan elders; her name means “splendid flame.”

HYUUGA HIASHI 「日向 火脚」, ninety-ninth head of the clan, eldest son of Hiroki and Honoka, twin to Hizashi; his name means “spreading of a fire.”

HYUUGA HATORI 「日向 葉鳥」, one of the clan elders; his name is written using the kanji for “leaf” and “bird.”

HYUUGA HIKARI 「日向 晶」, cousin and wife of Hatori; her name means “sparkle.” _Deceased_.

HYUUGA AGEHA 「日向 鳳」, eldest daughter of Hatori and Hikari, cousin and wife of Hiashi; her name means “mythical bird.” It can also be written as 「揚羽」, meaning “swallowtail butterfly.” _Deceased_.

HYUUGA HOTARU 「日向 螢」, future head of the clan, eldest daughter of Hiashi and Ageha, twin to Hinata; her name means “firefly.”

HYUUGA HINATA 「日向 暖」, second daughter of Hiashi and Ageha, twin to Hotaru; her name means “warmth.”

HYUUGA HANABI 「日向 煙火」, third daughter of Hiashi and Ageha; her name means “firework.”

HYUUGA HITOMI 「日向 瞳」, daughter of Hiroki and Honoka, cousin and wife of Hajime; her name means “pupil,” in the ocular context.

HYUUGA IROHA 「日向 色華」, eldest son of Hajime and Hitomi, twin to Natsu, caretaker of Hotaru; his name means “splendid color.”

HYUUGA NATSU 「日向 夏」, daughter of Hajime and Hitomi, twin to Iroha, caretaker of Hanabi; her name means “summer.”

HYUUGA KOU 「日向 光」, second son of Hajime and Hitomi, caretaker of Hinata; his name means “light.”

HYUUGA AKARI 「日向 月灯」, second daughter of Hatori and Hikari, Head of Archives in the Intelligence Division; her name means “moonlight.”

HYUUGA HABOSHI 「日向 羽星」, one of the clan elders, second son of Eimi and Haruto; his name is written using the kanji for “feathers” and “star.”

HYUUGA HIRUMA 「日向 晝間」, son of Haboshi, cousin and husband of Hatoko, best friend of Hiashi; his name is written using the kanji for “daylight” and “gate.”

HYUUGA HIKAGE 「日向 日蔭」, eldest son of Hiruma and Hatoko, a potential suitor for Hotaru; his name means “shadow of the sun.”

HYUUGA HOKUTO 「日向 樸覩」, second son of Hiruma and Hatoko, a potential suitor for Hotaru; his name is written using the kanji for “tree bark” and “see.”

HYUUGA HIBARI 「日向 姫鉤」, eldest daughter of Hiruma and Hatoko, twin to Hirano; her name is written using the kanji for “princess” and “thorn.”

HYUUGA HIRANO 「日向 平埜」, second daughter of Hiruma and Hatoko, twin to Hibari; her name means “peaceful wilderness.”

* * *

_Branch House_

* * *

HYUUGA AIKA 「日向 葵蔓」, second daughter of Hisashi and Katsura, protector of Eimi; her name is written using the kanji for “rampant” and “hollyhock,” one of the kanji used to write “sunflower.”  _Deceased_.

HYUUGA TAKAME 「日向 鷹目」, cousin and husband of Aika, protector of Haruto; his name is written using the kanji for “hawk” and “eye.”  _Deceased_.

HYUUGA OSAMU 「日向 秋」, son of Takame and Aika, twin to Hanae, protector of Hiroki; his name means “autumn.”

HYUUGA HIZASHI 「日向 陽射」, second son of Hiroki and Honoka, twin to and protector of Hiashi; his name means “sunlight.”  _Deceased_.

HYUUGA MIDORI 「日向 美禽」, cousin and widow of Hizashi, a kusa and ANBU operative; her name is written using the kanji for “beautiful” and “bird” or “captive.”

HYUUGA NEJI 「日向 螺旋」, son of Hizashi and Midori, protector of Hinata; his name means either “screw” or “helix.”

HYUUGA HAJIME 「日向 春」, son of Osamu, cousin, husband, and protector of Hitomi; his name means “spring.”

HYUUGA HIMARI 「日向 妃葵」, eldest daughter of Osamu, cousin and wife of Hikaru, protector of Akari; her name is written using the kanji for “princess” and “hollyhock,” one of the kanji used to write “sunflower.” 

HYUUGA HATOKO 「日向 鳩子」, second daughter of Osamu, cousin, wife, and protector of Hiruma; her name means “dove child.”

HYUUGA HANAE 「日向 華恵」, daughter of Takame and Aika, twin to Osamu, protector of Honoka; her name means “splendid blessing.”  _Deceased_.

HYUUGA TAKUMI 「日向 伎」, cousin and husband of Hanae, protector of Haboshi; his name means “deed” or “skill.”  _Deceased_.

HYUUGA HIKARU 「日向 輝空」, eldest son of Takumi and Hanae, cousin and husband of Himari, protector of Haboshi; his name means “radiant sky.”

HYUUGA HOHETO 「日向 匂へと」, eldest son of Hikaru and Himari, cousin and husband of Ruri, protector of Hiashi; his name means something like “the fragrance of flowers” in modern Japanese. It’s from a poem beginning with the line “iroha ni hoheto.”

HYUUGA TOU 「日向 冬」, second son of Hikaru and Himari, protector of Kou; his name means “winter.”

HYUUGA FUTABA 「日向 双羽」, daughter of Hikaru and Himari, protector of Hikage; her name means “a pair of feathers.”

HYUUGA HAZUMI「日向 勢」, eldest daughter of Takumi and Hanae, cousin and widow of Hiiragi, protector of Hatori; her name means “military strength.”

HYUUGA HIIRAGI 「日向 柊」, cousin and husband of Hazumi, protector of Ageha; his name means “holly.”  _Deceased_.

HYUUGA KAEDE 「日向 楓」, eldest son of Hiiragi and Hazumi, protector of Hokuto; his name means “maple tree.”

HYUUGA YAYOI 「日向 夜宵」, eldest daughter of Hiiragi and Hazumi, first triplet; her name means “wee hours of the night.”

HYUUGA URARA 「日向 麗」, second daughter of Hiiragi and Hazumi, second triplet; her name means “resplendent.”

HYUUGA MOEKO 「日向 燃娘」, third daughter of Hiiragi and Hazumi, third triplet; her name means “girl who glows.”

HYUUGA AKIYO 「日向 燦陽」, second son of Hiiragi and Hazumi, protector of Hirano; his name means “brilliant sunshine.”

HYUUGA MAKOTO 「日向 恂」, second son of Takumi and Hanae, cousin and husband of Ibuki; his name means “sincerity” or “blinking.” _Deceased_.

HYUUGA IBUKI 「日向 芽」, cousin and widow of Makoto, protector of Honoka; her name means “bud” or “sprout.”

HYUUGA TOKUMA 「日向 増」, eldest son of Makoto and Ibuki, protector of Hotaru; his name means “augment.”

HYUUGA RURI 「日向 翠雀」, eldest daughter of Makoto and Ibuki, cousin and wife of Hoheto, protector of Hanabi; her name is written using the kanji for “green” and “sparrow.”

HYUUGA SAYA 「日向 莢」, second daughter of Makoto and Ibuki, twin to Kinu, protector of Natsu; her name means “husk” or “pod.”

HYUUGA KINU 「日向 繭」, third daughter of Makoto and Ibuki, twin to Saya, protector of Iroha; her name means “cocoon.”

HYUUGA MEGUMI 「日向 萌」, second son of Makoto and Ibuki, protector of Hibari; his name means “bud” or “malt.”

* * *

_Kekkei Genkai (Bloodline Limit)_

* * *

**Byakugan** 「白眼」: originated from the Otsutsuki Clan and later inherited by the Hyuuga Clan, regarded as one of the Three Great Doujutsu, the others being the Sharingan and the Rinnegan. It manifests as very distinctive eyes characterized by their enlarged and featureless white irides with no visible pupils. When active, the pupils become more distinct and the veins near their temples bulge. Prolonged overuse causes debilitating but temporary eye strain.

It gives the user a 360º field of vision, with one blind spot at the back of the neck above the first thoracic vertebra, the ability to see the chakra pathway system, the point of origin and nature type of chakra, determine chakra capacity and development of chakra control or whether a person is capable of molding chakra at all, and discern certain types of clones from the real person, and a range of vision that magnifies targets up to the cellular level and perceives targets at great distances. With training, Byakugan users can absorb every detail in their field of vision and process that information in the blink of an eye. It also gives the user the ability to see through genjutsu, any solid objects or obstructions. Byakugan users are unaffected by any blinding interference, though certain barriers may distort its perception. It can also amplify the range of genjutsu and detect thermal infrared radiation (i.e. body heat).

* * *

_Juinjutsu (Curse Seal Technique)_

* * *

**Caged Bird Curse Seal** 「籠の鳥の呪印」: used to brand members of the branch house in order to seal the Byakugan upon their death, but it can also be used to induce pain and cause brain damage if activated. Only the head of the clan knows the hand seal to activate the curse seal.

* * *

_Juuken (Gentle Fist)_

* * *

Juukenpo relies on relaxed movements to increase speed in order to allow faster sequences of moves; the tension exists only during the impact of the blow. Kihon Waza are taught first by repeating the hits and blocks alone, then practiced with a partner in uke/tori pairs. After that, training focuses on Kaeshi Waza (reversal or counter techniques) with exercises that aim to hit your attacker at the moment they strike. Kumite Randori, free partner sparring, is practiced in the form of either Ju Ippon Kumite (soft one-hit freestyle sparring) or Ju Kumite (soft freestyle sparring). Shiai Kumite is practiced in order to train as close as possible to a real fight, with the opponents wearing hands, feet, and teeth protectors. Koryuu Waza (advanced techniques) are designed for maximum efficiency and damages with minimal effort that originated on the battlefield.

* * *

**Taijutsu (Body Techniques)**

* * *

_Kihon Waza (Basic Techniques)_

* * *

**Tate Ken Tate Uchi** : hammer blow to the skull.

 **Tate Ken Yoko Uchi** : hammer blow to the temple.

 **Tate Ken Gyaku Yoko Uchi** : cross hammer blow to the temple.

 **Tate Ken Yoko Uchi Chudan** : hammer blow to the ribs.

 **Tate Ken Gyaku Yoko Uchi Chudan** : cross hammer blow to the ribs.

 **Tate Ken Jodan Tsuki** : face punch with the hand in a vertical position.

 **Tate Ken Chudan Tsuki** : gut punch with the hand in a vertical position.

 **Yoko Ken Jodan Tsuki** : face punch with the hand in a horizontal position.

 **Yoko Ken Chudan Tsuki** : gut punch with the hand in a horizontal position.

 **Yoko Ken Yoko Uchi** : hook punch to the temple.

 **Yoko Ken Age Uchi** : uppercut punch to the chin.

 **Uraken Mukae Uchi** : reverse punch to the nose.

 **Uraken Age Uchi** : reverse punch to the jaw.

 **Ate Geri Chudan** : front kick to the gut.

 **Harai Geri Gedan** : low lateral kick to the knee.

 **Harai Geri Chudan** : mid lateral kick to the ribs.

 **Ori Geri Gedan** : pushing kick to the kneecap.

 **Ori Geri Chudan** : pushing kick to the gut.

* * *

_Koryuu Waza (Advanced Techniques)_

* * *

**Higi Uchi** : elbow strikes.

 **Hiza Geri** : knee kicks.

* * *

**Ninjutsu (Ninja Techniques)**

* * *

_Kihon Waza (Basic Techniques)_

* * *

**Gentle Fist: Palm Strike** 「柔拳・掌底打ち」: the user sends chakra into the body of their opponent with a palm strike to either stun or kill by causing severe internal damage.

 **Gentle Fist: Chakra Point Needle** 「柔拳・点穴針 」: the user delivers a two-fingered strike at the opponent targeting a single tenketsu and halts the flow of chakra.

 **Gentle Fist: Barrage** 「柔拳・連弾」: the user delivers a series of quick blows of the Gentle Fist on the opponent.

* * *

_Koryuu Waza (Advanced Techniques)_

* * *

**Gentle Fist Technique: Exorcism** 「柔拳法・祓い」: the user delivers a two-handed palm strike, jumps toward their opponent, delivering another two-handed palm strike to their chest, and finally pushes backward with their feet from their opponent’s chest, knocking them back.

 **Gentle Fist Technique: Heavenly Palms Wild Dance** 「柔拳法・天掌乱舞」: the user grabs the opponent, flips them around and then strikes them thrice in the back, sending them flying away.

 **Gentle Fist Technique: Heavenly Kicks Wild Dance** 「柔拳法・天蹴乱舞」: the user kicks the opponent once on their knee, and then kicks them twice on their face in rapid succession, sending them spiraling upwards.

 **Gentle Fist Technique: Body Blow** 「柔拳法・一撃身」: a technique invented by Neji where he hits an opponent with a blast of chakra from every tenketsu on his body that sends them flying away from him.

 **Gentle Fist Technique: White Ki Release** 「柔拳法・白気開放」: the user performs a series of high-speed strikes before releasing a burst of chakra from their hands.

 **Gentle Step: Twin Lion Fists** 「柔歩・双獅拳」: a technique invented by Hinata where she changes the shape of chakra released from both hands into large guardian lion-shaped shrouds that drain the chakra network of those they touch.

 **Gentle Fist Technique: Water Needle**  「柔拳法・水針」: a technique invented by Hinata where she concentrates her chakra until water vortexes are created around her. Those vortexes shoot blasts which that become needles of water that can be used with great precision to hit very small targets.

* * *

_Hakke Waza (Eight Trigrams Palm Techniques)_

* * *

**Eight Trigrams Two Palms** 「八卦二掌」: two palm strikes that block tenketsu.

 **Eight Trigrams Four Palms** 「八卦四掌」: four palm strikes that block tenketsu.

 **Eight Trigrams Sixteen Palms** 「八卦十六掌」: sixteen palm strikes that block tenketsu.

 **Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms** 「八卦三十二掌」: thirty-two palm strikes that block tenketsu.

 **Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms** 「八卦六十四掌」: sixty-four palm strikes that block tenketsu.

 **Eight Trigrams One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Palms** 「八卦百二十八掌」: one hundred and twenty-eight palm strikes that block tenketsu.

 **Eight Trigrams Two Hundred and Fifty-Six Palms** 「八卦二百五十六掌」: two hundred and fifty-six palm strikes that block tenketsu.

 **Eight Trigrams Three Hundred and Sixty-One Style** 「八卦三百六十一式」: the user blocks 360 tenketsu with rapid fire strikes, then blocks the last one to kill their opponent.

 **True Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms** 「真八卦六十四掌」: the user leaps forward and strikes the opponent several times in the back before dashing in front of them, then strikes the opponent several more times and launches the opponent into the air; the user leaps and strikes the opponent several more times, hitting them once more at lightning speed and blasting them into the air.

 **Protective Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms** 「守護八卦六十四掌」: invented by Hinata, this is a highly versatile technique which affords both offensive and defensive capabilities whereby she emits a constant stream of chakra from her palms, which are formed into extremely thin, sharp, blades. If used offensively, Hinata shapes the chakra into thin, sharp, flexible blades allowing her to hit hundreds of targets with extreme precision and can cut smaller targets into pieces. When used defensively, Hinata creates much larger, stronger, more flexible, arc-shaped chakra blades that spread out across her entire attack range, effectively forming a barricade between herself and her opponents, rebuffing even the largest and smallest of targets.

 **Protective Eight Trigrams One Hundred and Twenty-Eight Palms**  「守護八卦百二十八掌」: upgraded version of the Protective Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms. This technique sends out an outward burst of the chakra dome created.

 **Eight Trigrams Great Combo Palm**  「八卦大連掌」: three Hyuuga use Eight Trigrams Sky Palm to distance themselves from the opponent, while another uses Eight Trigrams Sky Palm Wall. Afterwards, all four Hyuuga use a cooperative Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, during which two deliver close-ranged Gentle Fist strikes and two use Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin. Lastly, they use a cooperative Eight Trigrams Sky Palm at a close range, sending their opponent flying.

 **Eight Trigrams Spirit Palm** 「八卦合気掌」: the user poses with their arms defensively and upon the opponent hitting them, grabs them and sends them flying away straight up into the air, then uses a high-speed palm strike to hit their falling opponent.

 **Eight Trigrams Grid Palm** 「八卦盤掌」: the user slams their hand on the ground, creating a network of grids which inflicts pain on the victim.

 **Eight Trigrams Sky Palm** 「八卦空掌」: the user precisely pinpoints their opponent’s vital points with the Byakugan and releases a high-speed palm strike; air compressed using the Gentle Fist is formed to attack their opponent’s vitals from a distance, blowing them off their feet with tremendous force before they even notice they were hit.

 **Eight Trigrams Sky Palm Wall** 「八卦空壁掌」: a variation of the Eight Trigrams Sky Palm where either two Gentle Fist users, or a single person using both hands, sends a powerful wave of compressed chakra from either palm simultaneously and with great force towards an opponent; the chakra released from the user’s palms targets their opponent’s vitals while also knocking them off their feet with concussive force.

 **Eight Trigrams Breaching Sky Palm** 「八卦把孔空拳」: the user activates their Byakugan and attacks the opponent with their Eight Trigrams Heavenly Spin and their Eight Trigrams Sky Palm, making the opponent travel in the air with great damage.

 **Eight Trigrams Four Sky Palms** 「八卦四天空掌」: the user attacks their opponent thrice with Eight Trigrams Sky Palm, sending them crashing into a plateau of stone, before using it again to collapse the plateau on their opponent.

 **Eight Trigrams Mountain Crusher** 「八卦破山撃」: a more powerful version of the Hakke Kuushou invented by Neji; the user hits the target at close range with a powerful wave of chakra emitted from their palm, which sends them flying back, causing severe damage.

 **Eight Trigrams Lion Fist** 「八卦獅掌」: a technique invented by Hinata where she forms a lion-shaped shroud of chakra to attack the opponent from a distance, blowing them off their feet.

 **Eight Trigrams Sky Lion Fist** 「八卦空獅掌」: a technique invented by Hinata where she combines her Lion Fist with her Eight Trigrams Sky Palm and sends three lion-shaped shrouds of chakra at their opponent, blowing them off their feet.

 **Eight Trigrams Twin Lion Crumbling Attack** 「八卦双獅子崩撃」: a more powerful version of Gentle Step: Twin Lion Fists, using Tenseigan chakra mode.

 **Eight Trigrams Heavenly Spin** 「八卦掌回天」: the user emits chakra from all of their tenketsu to block an attack, then spins rapidly to repel the attack (and anything else in the vicinity) away and create a protective shield.

 **Eight Trigrams Great Heavenly Spin**  「八卦掌大回天」: a collaboration technique performed by two Hyuuga clan members, one performs the Protective Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms technique and the other uses the Eight Trigrams Palms Heavenly Spin around it. This creates a huge sphere with both offensive and defensive power, causing great damage to the opponent.

 **Eight Trigrams Heavenly Spin: Sever**  「八卦掌回天・絶」: a larger and more powerful version of the Eight Trigrams Heavenly Spin.

 **Eight Trigrams Heavenly Spin: Reflecting Light** 「八卦掌回天・照り返し」: a variation on the Heavenly Spin invented by Hotaru that combines the rotation with her Raigeki jutsu.

 **Eight Trigrams Heavenly Sky Palm** 「八卦掌空天」: the user strikes their opponent, throwing them in the air, then jumps high in the sky and performs a giant Eight Trigrams Heavenly Spin, creating a massive rotating sphere of chakra that crushes the enemy into the ground.

 **Eight Trigrams Palms Storm Dance** 「八卦掌嵐舞」: the user traps the opponent in the zone of the Eight Trigrams and delivers several palm attacks.

 **Eight Trigrams Palms Twin Handed Back** 「八卦掌双手通背」: after hitting the opponent into the air with the Eight Trigrams Heavenly Spin, the user strikes their opponent with several more hits and then a final concentrated hit with both palms that sends the opponent flying away from them.

 **Eight Trigrams Aerial Bomb**  「八卦空爆」: the user jumps from a high distance and strikes the foe continuously until they block every tenketsu, or runs at the enemy at full speed before jumping and hitting one of their vital organs. 

 **Eight Trigrams Sect Palm Wave** 「八卦宗掌波」: the user strikes with two palms as the initial blow on the opponent, then does the same for a total of five extra times from all angles while dancing around, before dashing in front of them and striking their opponent with a wave, draining their chakra.

* * *

**Kenjutsu (Sword Techniques)**

* * *

_Suburi (Practice Swings)_

* * *

First swing: downward vertical cut.

Second swing: step back into joudan-no-kamae, then a downward vertical cut.

Third swing: step back into waki-gamae, then a downward vertical cut.

Fourth swing: step forward into a downward vertical cut, and repeat.

Fifth swing: step forward while guarding into a 70º downward cut, and repeat.

Sixth swing: step forward with a downward vertical cut, then shuffle forward and strike.

Seventh swing: step forward while guarding into a 70º downward cut, then step forward and strike.

* * *

_Datotsu (Strikes)_

* * *

**Maai** : striking distance.

 **Irimi** : entering; a straightforward attack. Not exclusively a kenjutsu term.

 **Atemi** : strikes or feints aimed at vital points on the body.

 **Tenkan** : 180º pivot on the lead foot (left foot clockwise, right foot counterclockwise).

 **Kaiten** : hip shift to avoid an attack.

 **Tenshin** : step and pivot to avoid an attack.

 **Tsugi-ashi** : shuffle step.

 **Ayumi-ashi** : crossing step.

 **Ude-furi** : spinning step.

* * *

_Kamae (Stances)_

* * *

**Joudan-no-kamae** : sword raised above the head with the blade facing up, can be migi (right foot forward) or hidari (left foot forward).

 **Waki-gamae** : stance that hides the blade of the sword behind the body.

 **Chuudan-no-kamae** : basic posture that balances attack and defense, gravity centered between the feet, tip of the blade pointed at the throat of the opponent; the left foot is slightly behind the right with the left heel slightly raised, both feet are parallel, the hips are straight forward, shoulders are relaxed, spine is perpendicular to the floor at all times, sword is held in front of the waist.

 **Gedan-no-gamae** : variant of chuudan-no-kamae with the sword held in front of the lower body used to deflect blows and strike from below.

 **Hassou-no-kamae** : offensive stance where the left foot is forward, and the sword is held pointing upright with the hilt in front of the right shoulder.

 **Seigan-kamae** : right foot forward with most of the weight on the leading leg; sword directly in front, held with a slight bend to the elbows; the kissaki, the point of the katana, aimed at the eyes; a harmonious balance of both attack and defense.


	10. [Appendix II] Glossary of Kimono

* * *

_Glossary of Kimono_

* * *

**Kitake** : dress length.

 **Mitake** : clothing length.

 **Ohashori** : folding the cloth of the kimono at the waist to adjust the length.

 **Kamon** : family crest. These are added to kimono with two in the front and three on the back. It begins with one crest in the center of the back (least formal), escalates with three on the back, and ends with five on the front and back of the kimono (most formal).

* * *

_Anatomy of a Kimono_

* * *

**Eri** : collar.

 **Uraeri** : inner collar.

 **Tomoeri** : outer collar.

 **Yuki** : length from the sleeve to the collar.

 **Furi** : sleeve below the armhole.

 **Sode** : sleeve.

 **Sodeguchi** : opening around the wrist.

 **Sodetsuke** : opening where the sleeve is attached to the body of the kimono.

 **Tamoto** : sleeve pouch.

 **Miyatsukuchi** : slit underneath where the sleeve is attached.

 **Doura** : upper lining.

 **Susomawashi** : lower lining.

 **Okumi** : narrow panel in the front.

 **Maemigoro** : front main panel.

 **Ushiromigoro** : back panel.

 **Fuki** : hemguard.

* * *

_Styles of Fabric_

* * *

**Awase** : lined kimono worn between the beginning of October and the fourteenth of May that can be any style, typically rich or bright in color.

 **Hitoe** : unlined kimono worn between the fifteenth of May and the end of September that can be any style. After the nineteenth of September, obi worn paired with hitoe should be lined.

 **Usumono** : summer fabrics worn in July and August, typically sheer. Ro silk kimono are see-through, so the underkimono is visible and should not be made of the same material.

* * *

_Undergarments_

* * *

**Nagajuban** : underkimono.

 **Hiyoku** : a more formal version of the nagajuban worn to weddings or funerals.

 **Hadajuban** : undershirt worn underneath the nagajuban.

 **Susoyoke** : underskirt worn underneath the nagajuban.

 **Eri-sugata** : a detached collar worn by men in summer instead of the nagajuban.

 **Kari-himo** : sashes used to hold things in place during the process of putting on a kimono. These are sometimes removed once the datejime and obi are tied, and sometimes worn beneath the layers of the kimono.

 **Koshi-himo** : sashes worn around the hips to create the extra ohashori fold in the kimono.

 **Fundoshi** : traditional underwear for adult men, basically a cotton G-string.

* * *

_Accessories_

* * *

**Obi** : kimono belt or sash.

 **Obiage** : sash knotted above the obi that can add a layer of formality to any style of kimono.

 **Obijime** : thin cord tied around the obi.

 **Obiban** : small accessory used to keep the obi flat. It can be trimmed with lace that peeks out from under the obi.

 **Obi-makura** : small pillow that shapes the musubi.

 **Obidome** : small accessory fastened to the obijime at the front of the obi.

 **Obi-kazari** : a strap or decoration that dangles from the top of the obi. These are called netsuke when they’re worn by men.

 **Datejime** : belt fastened over the kimono but under the obi.

 **Datemaki** : a wider version of the datejime used by men.

 **Tabi** : socks with split toes, can be worn paired with traditional sandals (i.e. geta, okobo, zori).

 **Kanzashi** : hair ornaments.

 **Haneri** : a length of fabric that is 16 centimeters wide and 110 centimeters long, attached to the collar of the nagajuban to cover or adorn it. These are sometimes embroidered with flower patterns or geometric motifs and they can be made of polyester, crepe, satin, linen, silk, or gauze. I like the ones trimmed in lace.

 **Haori** : jackets worn on top of the kimono that can be formal or informal depending on the kind of fabric.

 **Haori-himo** : tassled and woven string fastener used for haori; white is the most formal color.

 **Happi** : less formal version of the haori originally worn by servants or shopkeepers, now worn at festivals. Usually made of cotton.

 **Hanten** : informal version of the haori worn as a winter coat.

 **Jittoku** : more formal haori worn exclusively by men that originated in the Kamakura period. These are worn by male practitioners of tea ceremony in modern Japan.

 **Hakama** : formal skirt or puffy silk pants traditionally worn by men, typically pleated and fastened by ribbons tied around the waist over the obi. These come in two varieties: umanoribakama (divided) and andonbakama (undivided).

 **Uchikake** : highly formal jacket worn on top of the kimono that is exclusively worn by stage performers and brides in modern Japan. It’s designed to trail behind the wearer on the floor.

* * *

_Styles of Kimono_

* * *

**Yukata** : informal unlined kimono worn to summer festivals, typically made of cotton. This style can be worn by anyone of any age and marital status.

 **Komon** : informal silk kimono with a small pattern repeated all over the garment that can be worn by married and unmarried women. Usually casual, but sometimes paired with a formal obi.

 **Iromuji** : informal single-color unpatterned kimono worn by married and unmarried women, most appropriate for teatime. These can also be paired with a formal obi.

 **Tsukesage** : semiformal kimono with discontinuous patterns along the seams worn to parties, appropriate for women and girls of all ages and of any marital status but inappropriate for ceremonies. Usually have no kamon.

 **Houmongi** : formal silk kimono with patterns that cross over the seams, appropriate for women and girls of all ages and of any marital status. Usually have between zero and five kamon. Often distinguished by the pattern being more prominent on the hem and shoulders.

 **Furisode** : formal silk kimono worn by unmarried women that are most appropriate for ceremonies and weddings. These come in three styles: kofurisode (with sleeves between 75 and 87 centimeters long), chuufurisode (with sleeves between 91 and 106 centimeters long), and ofurisode (with sleeves between 114 and 125 centimeters long). Usually have between zero and five kamon; ofurisode without kamon but with patterns that cross the seams are typically worn by women on Coming-of-Age Day.

 **Tomosode** : formal silk kimono that are worn in two styles, irotomosode and kurotomosode. Irotomosode are single-color kimono patterned only below the waistline that can be worn by married or unmarried women, with a continuous design going around the hem called an eba pattern. Usually have anywhere from one to five kamon. Kurotomosode are black kimono with an eba pattern worn by married women only. These are considered the most formal style for married women. Usually have three or five kamon.

 **Mofuku** : black unpatterned formal silk kimono over white nagajuban or hiyoku worn by those in mourning. Usually has five kamon.

 **Juunihitoe** : twelve-layer kimono worn by imperial women.

 **Kariginu** : informal hunting cloaks worn by nobility in the Heian period that can be patterned or matte, typically worn by kannushi in modern Japan.

 **Joue** : white ceremonial robe or costume that consists of a tunic over an outer robe and a hitoe kimono, pants called sashinuki or nubakama, and a belt called joue no ate-obi; basically a white kariginu.

NOTE: men’s kimono are simple and typically consist of five pieces (the outer kimono, nagajuban, susoyoke, hadajuban, and the obi); women’s kimono are more elaborate.

* * *

_Styles of Obi_

* * *

**Heko-obi** : informal soft obi made of thin cloth worn by people of all ages and of any martial status. Puchi-heko-obi are small obi ties with lace or frills used to accessorize the musubi.

 **Tsuke-obi** : informal ready-to-wear obi that comes in two parts, the sash and pre-tied musubi. These can also be called tsukuri-obi or kantan-obi. Originally invented for elderly women that couldn’t put on kimono by themselves because of their arthritis.

 **Shigoki-obi** : decorative semiformal obi worn by women and girls of all ages and of any marital status.

 **Kaku-obi** : formal obi worn by men that is typically 10 centimeters wide and 400 centimeters long, can be worn on any occasion.

 **Sanjaku-obi** : less formal version of the kaku-obi that is typically worn by children and tied in a koma-musubi.

 **Hanhaba-obi** : informal unlined obi that is typically 15 centimeters wide and between 300 and 400 centimeters long.

 **Tenga-obi** : more formal version of the hanhaba-obi that is typically 20 centimeters wide and between 350 and 400 centimeters long. Usually worn for celebrations and patterned with auspicious designs.

 **Chuuya-obi** : informal obi with different colors or patterns on each side that are typically 30 centimeters wide and between 350 and 400 centimeters long. These were commonly worn in the Edo and Meiji period, but aren’t worn in modern Japan. Chuuya means “night and day.”

 **Nagoya-obi** : most common obi worn in modern Japan, typically 30 centimeters wide and between 315 and 345 centimeters long and either partially or fully patterned. These are structured with one of the ends folded and sewn in half to make tying a taiko-musubi knot easier. Fukuro-Nagoya-obi are made specifically for tying a more formal version of a taiko-musubi called nijuudaiko-musubi, and they’re about 350 centimeters long.

 **Fukuro-obi** : formal lightweight obi that is typically 30 centimeters wide and between 360 and 450 centimeters long. These can be patterned on both sides (most formal), patterned on the outside (60% formal), and only patterned where the designs show when tied in a taiko musubi (least formal).

 **Kobukuro-obi** : less formal version of the fukuro-obi that is typically between 15 and 20 centimeters wide and 300 centimeters long.

 **Kyobukuro-obi** : structured like a fukuro-obi but only as long as a Nagoya-obi, typically 30 centimeters wide and 350 centimeters long.

 **Kakae-obi** : formal version of the shigoki-obi worn by a bride on her wedding day.

 **Maru-obi** : very formal obi that was most popular during the Taisho and Meiji periods, now worn exclusively by geisha, maiko, and brides. These are typically between 30 and 35 centimeters wide and between 360 to 450 centimeters long, fully patterned and embroidered with metal-coated yarn and foil mirror work.

* * *

_Types of Obi_

* * *

**Zentsu-gara** : fully patterned obi.

 **Rokutsu-gara** : partially patterned obi (approximately 60%).

 **Otaiko-gara** : obi with the patterns arranged on the fabric wrapped around the waist and knotted at the back.

* * *

_Styles of Musubi_

* * *

**Taiko-musubi** : drum knot that can be worn by girls and women of all ages and of any marital status. Ubiquitous. It’s considered appropriate in all but the most formal settings. Nijuudaiko-musubi are considered appropriate for more formal settings, like weddings.

 **Chouchou-musubi** : butterfly knot. Usually tied using a hanhaba-obi.

 **Bunko-musubi** : bow knot similar to the chouchou-musubi that can be tied using a hanhaba-obi or a Nagoya-obi. Shidare-bunko is a variation on this style.

 **Asagao-musubi** : morning glory knot. Usually worn paired with yukata. It’s typically worn by younger girls because the knot can only be tied using a great length of obi.

 **Bara-musubi** : rose knot. Usually worn by younger women and girls to parties. These shouldn’t be worn paired with a multicolored or fully patterned obi and the kimono pattern should match the design of the flower.

 **Ayame-musubi** : iris knot. Usually worn by younger women and girls to parties. Since the knot is very complex and conspicuous, it’s worn paired with monochromatic or subdued colors and styles of kimono.

 **Tateya-musubi** : standing arrow knot. Usually worn paired with furisode or with a wedding kimono because it fits underneath the uchikake.

 **Fukura-suzume-musubi** : puffed sparrow knot worn only by unmarried women. It’s most suitable for very formal occasions and is only paired with furisode. These musubi were traditionally worn by women to indicate their eligibility for marriage.

 **Washikusa-musubi** : eagle grass knot, a type of bow knot.

 **Karuta-musubi** : a flat and more formal knot suitable for yukata typically worn by men. It can also be worn by women.

 **Koma-musubi** : square knot typically used for tying obijime and haori-himo.

 **Kai-no-kuchi-musubi** : clam mouth knot. Usually worn by men as part of a more subdued obi.

* * *

_Types of Fabric_

* * *

**Meisen** : fabric made of loosely woven silk thread dyed using stencils; the warp or the weft threads may be discarded at this point and new ones woven in to create the initial patterns. After the fabric is woven, additional hand painting, dying or embroidery is completed before assembling the kimono. Meisen kimono are typically bold in both colors and design but are not worn on formal occasions.

 **Rinzu** : a silk-satin damask fabric. After the threads are initially dyed, they are woven to form a geometric or floral pattern or a shiny, subtle repeating damask pattern on a matte background. Two different types of silk threads may be used to create the pattern. After that, Rinzu fabric may then be dyed, painted or embroidered before the kimono is sewn. This forms a multilayered design with the dyed or painted design over the top of the damask pattern. Rinzu fabric ranges from lightweight to heavy damasks and is often used to make wedding kimono and uchikake.

 **Omeshi** : a type of heavy silk crepe; it has twisted threads that are dyed and waxed before they are woven together to produce strongly patterned fabric.

 **Chirimen** : a thick, heavy silk crepe; crinkled fabric made by the weft threads being kept tighter than the warp threads during the weaving process. It drapes beautifully and is difficult to crease.

 **Kinsha** : a fine and light silk crepe; the fabric is typically dyed after weaving using various dying and hand painting techniques. It has a smooth texture which results in crisp lines and is perfect for painting or dying detailed scenes.

 **Ro** : loosely woven from very fine threads of silk, creating sheer, airy, summer kimono. Horizontal and vertical lines are shown by the gaps in the weave, and pairs of thread are braided over one central thread. Patterns and designs are dyed after weaving, typically using stencils. Ro fabric is not used to make formal kimono.

 **Sha** : woven silk gauze typically used for unlined summer kimono; the threads are not braided, so there are no vertical or horizontal stripes caused by gaps in the weave. Sha fabric is therefore much stiffer. Different weaving techniques may be used to create a subtle pattern in the fabric that is dyed or hand painted after weaving. Sha fabric is not used to make formal kimono.

* * *

_Patterns_

* * *

**Sakura** : cherry blossoms, a floral pattern that symbolizes renewal and transience, the fleeting nature of life. Often used for kimono worn in spring.

 **Asagao** : morning glory, a floral pattern that symbolizes affection, love, and spiritual longing. Often used for kimono worn in summer.

 **Kiku** : chrysanthemum, a floral pattern that symbolizes longevity and rejuvenation. Often used for kimono worn in autumn.

 **Ume** : plum blossoms, a floral pattern that symbolizes nobility, purity, devotion, refinement, and protection against evil. Often used for kimono worn in winter.

 **Asanoha** : hemp leaf, a geometric pattern that resembles the leaves of a hemp plant. Often used for kimono worn by children.

 **Kikko** : tortoiseshell, a geometric pattern with designs inside the hexagons.

 **Shippou** : seven jewels, a circular pattern that extends into infinity. There are sometimes additional designs incorporated in the center of the circle, such as flowers.

 **Karakusa** : arabesque, a pattern of twists and spirals that resemble vines sometimes accompanied by flowers like peonies or lotus blossoms. This pattern symbolizes prosperity and eternity, but it can also be used to mean family lineages or legacies.

 **Seigaiha** : blue sea wave, a pattern that symbolizes resilience and power. This pattern uses the shapes ancient Chinese mapmakers used to depict an ocean.

 **Yagasuri** : a pattern that resembles the fletching on arrows. It symbolizes determination and steadfastness.

NOTE: These are only a fraction of the patterns used for kimono fabrics, because new fabrics are being designed every day.


End file.
